


Ships in Glass Bottles

by Scatterboom



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Eventual Sex, F/M, Gore, POV First Person, Past Relationship(s), Repressed Memories, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-13 19:13:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 48,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5713942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scatterboom/pseuds/Scatterboom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Irene Adler doesn't find hiding very fun at all, not even in a city like New York. Maybe an unannounced visit from old friend and more-than-occasional nuisance Sherlock Holmes, who's taking on a case offered to him by a local art critic, will give her something interesting to do. But then the pillars of her carefully manufactured new life begin to topple, and scars from the past - both hers and his - begin to reopen, and it becomes painfully clear that old enemies are not the only thing either of them are running from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Negative Images

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I'm excited to finally be posting this. I'm a long time fan of this pairing, first time poster. The idea for this fic came up a few months ago, when I realized absolutely everything I did or thought was for work and not for fun, or myself. So I figured to start writing again in my spare time, and this darling of mine came into existence!! It was inspired by my desire to see more fic of Irene and Sherlock interacting without too much of a time constraint, just - the two of them, talking (a lot), growing closer, denying their feelings. I realize the lack of a time limit for these two might seem a bit OOC for some, but I figured it'd be a good writing exercise if I made it work. Besides that, this is intended as a study of Irene and partly of Sherlock. Hope you enjoy!

The last voyage ever sailed by the HMS Victory, flagship of Lord Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, world's oldest naval ship in commission, was off a slippery edge, taking a speedy route through the air, before crashing into a hundred pieces onto its destination of my living room hardwood floor.

It was an accidental journey. The wind outside had blown a lone sheet of newspaper up some storeys and it smacked hard against my window. I'd just come home and was pulling off my boots when I heard the noise. When I whirled around, my elbow knocked into my model ship-in-a-bottle on my bookshelf, and it sent the good old Victory down to a grave of tiny splintered parts and shattered glass at my feet.

I've seen more violent deaths. But then, I’ve never had to clean them up myself.

I’m kneeling on a mat stolen from my bathroom, armed with rubber gloves, picking up the largest of the bottle shards and dropping them into a plastic bag, when Sherlock Excellent-Timing Holmes trudges into my flat with his luggage as if he'd come back from a long trip and this was his home.

I turn to see who's intruded and my eyes go wide. He looks back at me with a frown, as if I’m wearing the wrong reaction. We’re like this for probably a full ten seconds.

Do you know that afterimage phenomenon? You stare at something for so long, know it for so long, that when you look away to an empty space there remains a negative version of it floating before your eyes. Opposite shades, opposite colours. I feel as if it’s happening to me in reverse: a negative image of Sherlock Holmes stands before me, ingraining itself into my sight, and I cannot look away.

The last time I’d seen him, he was looming, robust, darkened by sun and desert sand.

Now: he has the same face and hair and that singular coat, still. But he is pale, older, looking as if the same gust of wind that smacked a newspaper against my window was the same one that had pushed him in through my flat door.

I realize I’m holding one large glass shard in my hand a little too tightly. I clear my throat and say, “How did you get in here.”

Sherlock Absolute-Twat Holmes blinks a few times before answering. “You left your door unlocked. I just tried the doorkno-”

“I'd just come home you absolute twat,” I snap. “I meant how did you _find me_.”

The last address of mine I'd ever sent him was when I was still hiding out in Melbourne. He'd contacted me saying he needed a post in Australia. It was just a precaution, and he never visited.

But now I’m in Soho, New York. Have been for over a year. A bit obvious for a hiding place, you might say, but I left enough false clues at my old place to lead any possible threats to think I'd fled to East Asia.

I guess it was foolish of me to assume it would lead Sherlock Holmes to the same conclusion.

“Please, Irene,” says Sherlock as he rolls his eyes, and I realize too late that I've given him a chance to show off. “Editing your web search history and leaving behind all of your winter clothing was clever enough, but I expect you of all people to go above and beyond. You purchased an English-to-Japanese language guidebook online to throw off your pursuers, when _I_ know full well that your Japanese is more than adequate. After that it was just a matter of tracing your first flight then looking into what other routes that day required a stopover in the Philippines. Sloppy. Why are you on the floor?”

“It looks as if I’ve been warding off the wrong pursuers,” I shoot back. “You’re the only one who seems to following me around.”

I expected him to tense up and for his eyes to go wide. Again, the negative image: he closes them in exasperation and sighs, his hand slipping off the handle of his luggage. “What can I say? You are quite a valuable asset to me.”

“Oh you spoil me with your poetry.” I set down the plastic bag and get up, pulling off my rubber gloves. “Well, I’d rather we tossed barbs at each other without the neighbours hearing. Go on, close the door would you, then have a seat.”

Sherlock is still for a moment, like he thought that I was going to insult him for an hour more before letting him off the hook. Then he turns around, pushes my door closed, and walks briskly over to my couch. He evades my ship-and-glass mess on the floor without ever looking down.

“I see you’re in detective mode again,” I say as I take the space beside him, and I have to smirk at how ridiculous I sound. “What client in Soho shall I thank for sending you to me to visit, and – “ my eyes dart briefly to his luggage still in the corner, “ – to stay?”

And there, of course, Sherlock breaks into his typical, proud grin. My afterimage of him falls away and I can see it’s truly him again, here in my New York living room. “Jessica Greene.”

I raise an eyebrow. “The art critic.”

“The art critic,” he confirms, reaching into his trouser pocket to pull out his phone – a new one, most probably purchased for overseas cases such as this one. He scrolls through it for a few seconds. “Let’s see how much of Soho culture you’ve soaked up then. Have you seen anything like this around the city?”

He raises the screen to me and when I look, I can’t hide the twist of disgust that comes to my lip. “Of course. I don’t think anyone could forget seeing _those_.”

On his phone is a photo of a typical Soho brick wall, but with something like political campaign posters splashed across it in the row-by-row style. A passer-by on a busy morning would probably never stop to study them, or only mentally remark that it isn’t election time and this campaign material ought to be taken down. But people with nowhere to be, or people who are particularly observant – say, art enthusiasts, and detectives – only need one glance to realize the horror of it.

The man “running” for Mayor of New York wears the classic politician’s costume: slicked shiny brown hair, with a clean new suit and tie, his head tilted slightly upward to beam at the bright future he has planned for the city.

But his eyes are sunken deep into his skull, half-hidden behind pale, flattened eyelids. The skin on his face is waxy and almost purple. His lips, or what can still be seen of them, are ghostly white, and would have just been slacked open had someone not Photoshopped their edges into an eerie, toothless smile.

And there is, of course, the matter of a massive, bloodied gash traveling from the top of his head to his chin, completely flattening and caving in the front curve of his skull.

A corpse is running for Mayor. His name, TOD TRUMAN, is stamped in an electric blue, bold typeface, in a triumphant upward slant, and below that his tagline: THE ONE RIGHT WAY.

“And I’m sure you’ve seen some of the other copies around Soho,” Sherlock pipes up, swiping to more photos for me, showing the same poster on different walls in different alleyways. “There’s a new installation somewhere different every Wednesday. This one is the latest, just a few streets away from you I believe.

“Critics everywhere are hailing it as a ‘triumph of urban art’,” he says in his most sarcastically affected voice. It gives me an excuse to break my gaze away from the morbid imagery and look straight at him. “It is, they say, ‘A critique of how inconsequential today’s monolithic political and economic systems actually appear when viewed from a distance; how mortality is the only real dictator that can distribute power or forcefully take it away’.”

I roll my eyes. “Been reading NYArts, I see.”

“What is that? No. Jessica Greene sent me all that information when she first contacted me via my website. See, she wasn’t as charmed by the prints as the rest of her colleagues, she tells me. The posters are unsigned but most critics are attributing it to some artist who only goes by the name of ‘Stein.’ Apparently their body of work frequently deals with death or violent imagery. Greene tells me she believes this particular photo isn’t makeup or a prop, but a legitimate murder victim.”

“And you believe her?” I ask. _Now_ this is interesting.

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t,” says Sherlock, and he swipes his screen back to the original gruesome closeup. “The first thing I noticed is that this is an entirely accurate example of a body about thirty minutes after death. Greene informed me that Stein doesn’t particularly dabble in special effects. They used real animal carcasses in their old art. Started out with dead insects then it escalated to larger animals from there, and now it seems they’re using humans. There’s reason to believe this is a real corpse.”

“In other words, it’s the morning of your twelfth birthday and your parents have surprised you with a puppy,” I conclude, drily.

He rolls his eyes. “I’m eager to look into it, yes.” He pockets his phone and, before I can predict it, he twists at the waist to take a pillow from my couch and set it against the armrest, as if making a bed. “I do hope you have a loo here for guests, but your living room will do perfectly fine as the headquarters. I trust you’ll clean up that mess over there – “

“ _Excuse me_ ,” I cut him off, sharply putting up a hand. He turns back towards me, puzzled, mid-fluff of his – my – pillow. “’Headquarters’?”

Sherlock blinks several times. “Well, yes, of course. I need some place to put all my things, my files, my laptop, my samples – “

“Samples.”

“Yes, obviously.” He wrinkles his nose. “This is a potential murder we’re talking about. If we ever find clues or, ideally, the body, I’ll need to test to see where it’s been, what’s happened to it – “

“In other words, you’ll make a reeking mess of the biggest room in my flat.”

Sherlock throws his hands up. “That’s a given when you’re experimenting with _anything!_ Since when was cleanliness such a priority to you? It’s not as if I’ll be doing my work in a place that was immaculate to begin with. Over there you’ve left a potentially hazardous scrapheap of what looks to be wood and glass – “

“You came in before I could clean it up!” I snap. He promptly shuts his mouth. I sigh and drag a hand over my face. “I haven’t forgotten what you’ve done for me. Of course you can stay.”

“Irene – “

“But,” I keep on. “I’ll not have you cluttering up my living room. If it surprises you, I _do_ have people over from time to time. You’ll have my guest bedroom. It has its own loo, and a window should you ever have to release anything toxic.” I point down my small hallway with three white doors: one is my laundry room, one my guest bedroom, and one my own.

Sherlock’s widened eyes follow the direction of my finger, before turning back to me, looking slightly astonished. It’s a few seconds before he speaks, calm again. “I obviously don’t expect nor desire any charity from you. I suppose you plan to ask me to pay – “

“ – Rent,” I overlap the end of his sentence. “Yes.”

A quirk of his eyebrow. “How much.”

I let out a huff of air. “Well. I don’t know. How long do you plan on staying?”

He lifts his chin in arrogance. “Shouldn’t take too long to solve this. A week at most. In fact, if you left me alone this instant and gave me forty-eight hours, no, thirty-six, I could – “

“Why don’t we see how long it takes you and at the end of it all, I charge you accordingly,” I interrupt before he can give me enough reason to punch him in the face.

He sighs. “Alright.”

“ _And_ ,” I say louder, and Sherlock turns to me again, wary. “…you have to tell me about your progress every day.” I take a breath. “And you will let me help.”

Sherlock looks stunned for a moment. I stare back, firm and unblinking.

Then he smiles. It’s not an outright grin – just a good, calm, upward twitch of his mouth. “That’s entirely reasonable.”

I nod, closing our negotiation, and stand up. “Alright then. Take your bag. I’ll show you to your room, give you a tour.”

“Excellent,” Sherlock says with renewed alertness, standing up as well. “I do have quite a few questions about your current situation.” Before I can stop him, he strides over to my kitchen counter, where I had left a pile of bills and paper, and picks up a small, glossy flyer. On it is a sleek black and white logotype.

“This café, on the ground floor of your building. You own it, don’t you?”

I sigh. So begins the interrogation. “Yes.”

“Of course. ‘Café Margate’ stands out as terribly British in a neighbourhood of Rio’s and Mozzino’s and Du Jour’s. But I can see that was your intention. It makes it sounds old, sophisticated. To attract your target demographic of 20-something pseudointellectuals. No?”

A smirk comes to my lips. “They pay exorbitant amounts for cold brew.”

“Surely it’s not just the profit that attracts you.”

“When I first arrived here I’d realized that among my numerous talents, my business acumen wasn’t getting enough time in the limelight. Thought it would be a fun little venture. I bought the space of a bookshop going out of business and played it by ear from there.”

Sherlock nods, not hiding that he’s impressed. Then he immediately starts turning his head here, there, surveying the place. He points at my plain, but practical, handbag, which I’d tossed onto a kitchen stool when I first entered my home half an hour ago. “An ‘if found, please contact’ nametag attached to your bag, hanging from the outside as if you don’t mind who sees it. New alias, then?”

 “I haven’t run into any pursuers for ages, but it’s always good to change the locks every now and then. You probably figured it out already in order to find my current address, but now I’m going by Rita Delmare.”

Seeming to accept that, he looks around a little more, then takes some steps toward me until he can reach to pick up a brass picture frame from the desk beside my couch.

It’s a photo of me smiling, bundled in winter wear, my arm outstretched to hold up the camera, with my other arm around the shoulder of a dark haired, dark eyed woman, equally wrapped up. “Who’s this?”

“Pat Alvarez. My girlfriend.”

Of course he looks up at me with mild surprise. I ask, “Do you not believe me?”

“What? No. I mean yes.” He hastily shakes his head. “In fact, I believe you completely.” He gestures again at the picture. “This photograph is just a closeup of the two of you. No tourist attraction in the background, no view of New York. None of the clichéd cues that would fool any acquaintances you might have over. This was taken in the spur of the moment, while you were enjoying each other’s company. There’s also the fact that you had it placed on the desk facing the _couch_ , and not outward, towards the door. It’s not strategically positioned for visitors to see as they come in. It’s for _you_. To look at when you sit there in the morning, enjoying your expensive coffee.” He nods to himself, satisfied with his analysis. “This is real, then.”

 “Yes. As real as any part of Rita Delmare’s life.”

“And currently, Rita Delmare is you, standing here before me. So I see that it’s as real as it could be,” Sherlock says, putting the frame down to return his luggage.

I have to admit I was rather stunned by his saying something so… generous. I’d wanted to appear detached, casual – but I saw that _he_ saw just how much affection I actually feel for this woman. How comforting I find her closeness, how worthy of documentation I find her smile -

“Which of these rooms is mine?” asks Sherlock, pulling me out of my state. He’s back in front of me, but now gripping the handle of his luggage, while pointing down my hallway.

“Right. Let me bring you.” I start towards the doors, and I hear the wheels of his luggage roll heavily as he follows me. “So. You’ve gotten an update on _me_. What brings _you_ to New York? Here’s the room.” I stop in front of the second door down.

“You _were_ listening to me, right?” he asks in annoyance as he comes up beside me, parking his luggage next to the guest bedroom. “I’m here because art critic Jessica Greene contacted me with a case th-“

“That’s not what I mean,” I say. “This couldn’t have been the most interesting offer you received this month. Why not save yourself the hassle of traveling when you have the Yard back across the sea to bother you? Why take on a case so far away from home?”

Briefly, rapidly, I see my negative image of Sherlock Holmes return. It falls over him like a veil: suddenly tired eyes, a set mouth, hollow cheeks. Immediately he straightens back up, closing his hands into fists, but I can still hear the fatigue in his voice: “No doubt that the news of Magnussen, or the false Moriarty return, reached you.”

I furrow my eyebrows. “Yes, but… that happened months ago. You resolved it all…”

“Not before all the damage was done,” he says sharply. “I put countless people in danger. Innocents. My own friends.”

I shakes my head at him. “You speak as if it were your fault.”

He looks at me strangely then. His eyes are slightly widened; his mouth is a straight, tight line. I find I can do nothing but stare back, uncertain – and almost troubled – that I’d said the wrong thing.

But then he exhales, and a gentleness returns to his face. “I’ve forgotten how small you actually are without your heels.”

“Oh.”

I glance at myself and realize, since he had first entered my flat, that Sherlock was probably also confronted by a negative image - of the Irene Adler _he_ knew. The humidity of New York had made my hair curlier than it used to be, and the more generous amount of sun brought out some of my freckles. I’m still in the leather jacket I’d come home in, and under that is my simple blouse and jeans. And, yes, I am barefoot, marking me a full foot shorter than him.

When I look back up at Sherlock, he is still staring at me. All I can do is shrug. “You’ve seen me without heels before. Back in your flat in Baker Street, when I didn’t have any of my things. Remember?”

“Of course I remember,” comes his reply.

His voice – and face – have a layer of disdain, as if he was insulted that I’d doubted the capabilities of his memory. But, underneath that, I almost thought I was imagining it, is a softness, almost a warmth. I thought I could hear his actual implication – _How could I forget?_

I have to break my eyes away from his.

“There’s a closet in there. It’s empty. Put your things where you like them. Make a mess if it helps you to think, or whatever. Just don’t break anything in the bathroom.”

I pause when I suddenly remember something. “I do hope you didn’t have space in that bag for your violin. We share a wall, and if at any time during your stay I wake up at three A.M. to the sounds of you tuning that wretched thing I will barge in, pick you up and toss you out my window.”

He grins. “I didn’t bring it.”

“Well… good.” I put my hands on my hips. “Go on and unpack. I suppose I’ll make us tea.”

“I didn’t leave London and travel across an ocean to sit down for tea, but go ahead if it makes you happy.” He waves his hand as he turns around to open the door. “I’ll be finished in ten minutes.”

I watch him step in, pulling his luggage with him. It’s a disconcerting thing to see again: the silhouette of his head, of his upturned collar between his broad, sharp shoulders. I swear I see him glance at me one more time before the door swings fully closed.

It’s unsettling to stand there in the new silence, alone again in my flat as I have been for months, but knowing that there’s someone behind this door. I lift my hand and flatten it gently against the wood. It’s as if some part of me believes I can see through my palm and fingers, into the room: to see Sherlock Holmes surveying his new, tiny headquarters in New York, or unpacking his chemistry set, or, possibly, still staring at the door like me…

I look back at the living room, to find if there’s any trace of Sherlock Holmes having walked in just minutes ago.

And – oh, damn. I lay my eyes again on my model HMS Victory that had crashed onto my floor, only half-cleaned up.

I sigh as I shrug off my jacket and started hunting again for my rubber gloves. _Look at it this way_ , I tell myself. _At least it’s no longer the most exciting thing that’s happened to you today._


	2. Starting Obstacles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the comments and kudos, guys! :)

Pat and I are breaking up.

“At least, we’re in the _process_ of breaking up,” she explains to me from behind the rim of her cappuccino cup, as we sit at a corner table in my café.

It’s a sleepy Tuesday afternoon, a few hours after I let Sherlock Holmes move into my flat. With lunch break over, and the end of the day nowhere in sight, Café Margate is only half-filled, slow and quiet. The warm, even sunlight on the floor is interrupted only by shadows of chairs stretching across the tiles. My barista Peter stands faithfully behind the counter, aligning the stacks of cups beside the cash register, swaying slightly to the low-volume acoustic music over the speaker. A handful of college students are scattered among my small round tables, though they all sit alone with their books or their tablets. Pat and I are the only couple seated together.

Well, we _were_ a couple.

“Please,” I say flatly. “Enlighten me on the steps of this process.”

She gives me a sorry smile as she puts down her coffee. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like that, I just meant that – it’s – happening. Right now.”

“You’re only confusing me further.” I lean forward, daring to brush my fingers against the cup she’s holding. “Have I done something wrong?”

“No. Rita, you’ve been great.” She mirrors me and leans the same amount closer. “I’m not going to pull that ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ crap with you, okay? You’ve always just been you, and I’ve always just been me. And that was good for a while. But now, I think, it looks, like we’re – “

 “ – done with each other?”

Pat winces. “You’ve always been really so straightforward with your words.”

I’d like to tell her it’s a habit I made myself learn. That it’s how I always got my way long ago, when I still wore London as a stone on my ring. But the only things Pat knows about my old life is that I made my own wealth, I once worked in the “hospitality” industry, and I used to travel. A lot.

“Be straightforward with me now,” I tell her. “What’s wrong?”

Pat looks pained, like she already regrets what she’s about to say. But then she slides her palm against her hair slicked back into a bun, and takes a breath. “Seven months ago, when we started going out, we kinda acknowledged that our expiration date would be when I finished residency at Montefiore Medical. Right? But somewhere halfway I figured, does it have to end there? Why should it when we enjoy each other’s company so much? So I tried not to let it bug me for a while.” She lets her fingers inch around the cup ever so slightly closer to mine. “I guess a part of me figured, once I finished and moved back to Manchester up in New England, you’d – wanna come with me.”

I pull my hands back. “But you changed your mind about that.”

She makes that same sorry smile again. “You like to move from place to place. You told me yourself. I thought you’d find it fun. But I guess I realized… I can’t give you France or Australia or Japan. Just… me and Manchester. I figured that’s not the kind of destination that excites you.”

What would she figure, I think to myself, if I told her I moved from place to place, from France to Australia to Japan, because my life depended on it?

“What if I told you that the first half of ‘you and Manchester’ is a very tempting offer indeed?” I tell her instead. To my surprise, I sort of mean it.

She laughs a bit. “I don’t think I could ever pin you down.” She looks around the room with some affection. “Not even _this_ little project can. As soon as the lease runs out I’m willing to bet you’re gonna pack up and find another city to conquer.”

Well. I can’t tell her she’s wrong.

“Pat,” I say. She turns to me again, and won’t I miss those dark lashes and dark eyes. I figure they’re worth offering this: “I don’t suppose I could convince you to stay here with me?”

“Your definition of ‘stay’ would mean ‘stick around New York for a few months then move to Bali’ or something,” she sighs, then shakes her head. “Sorry. No. I wanna be with my family again. That’s a non-negotiable. You can’t pin me down, either.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I’ve easily pinned you down before.”

When she catches my meaning, Pat’s glum expression blooms into wild grin and she breaks into a giggle.

“Well, I’m going to miss _that_ ,” she snorts. Then she bats those dark eyelashes at me. “And that sexy accent of yours when you read me back my notes while I review.”

“I’m not going to miss reading out loud about hemorrhoids, that’s for sure. But… yes. I’ll miss those evenings too. Who knows. Maybe I’ll find a use for my knowledge about fourth-degree frostbite.”

“Unlikely if you don’t ever travel to colder climes,” says someone behind me.

Oh for God’s sake.

“I told you I was going to be back by four,” I snarl as I whip my head around to look at Sherlock Perfect-Timing-Absolute-Twat Holmes. “Why is it so difficult for you to follow one simple order and stay put oh my god where did you get that axe.”

Sherlock stands towering over the two of us, the sunlight behind him throwing his shadow over our table. The silhouette of his coat frames him, makes him look larger. And, yes, in his right hand is a huge, rusty-looking axe.

He gazes at me with that same still, unreadable face of his, and I glare right back, but I’m fairly certain that Pat, my barista Peter, and all my college student customers are staring at him as well.

“A friend,” he replies. “Who enjoys building log cabins. I’d been able to contact him here when I first landed in New York. Thought it would be fun and go for the gory details first and figure out what kind of axe caused the gash on the dead politician. I’m fairly certain my first guess here is correct. It’s a nine-centimeter-face Bushman axe, model number 178.” He casually lifts and jiggles the axe like it was a handbag.

“Holy shit,” breathes Pat, and I quickly turn back around to catch her awestruck face. “You’re Sherlock Holmes.”

I twist back to see him shrug and nod. “Correct.”

When I look at Pat again, she’s staring at _me_ this time, still amazed. “ _You_ know Sherlock Holmes?”

A hundred different fabricated explanations spring up inside my head, but I realize the truth is the most ridiculous of all of them. “He’s… my tenant.”

“Your _tenant?_ ” Pat sputters. “In your _second bedroom?_ ”

“She didn’t want me to take her couch,” says Sherlock. Why nature did not let me spontaneously combust right then and there I’ll never know.

“But… of all places to stay,” Pat goes on, still transfixed. “How did you know _Rita_? Is the UK just way, way smaller than I think it is?”

“We met on a case,” Sherlock and I answer simultaneously. I whip around again to stare at him in bewilderment, but his attention is on Pat.

“I… This might sound kinda rude, but,” starts Pat as she reaches for something in her pocket. “Could I take a picture with you? I just wanna put it on Instagram for my friends who _love_ you. Is that okay?”

For some reason I feel almost alarmed. “Wait, I don’t think that’s a good-“

“Certainly,” replies Sherlock in an oddly jovial manner. He steps around the table to take the chair beside Pat, but not before lowering his voice near me and explaining, “It’ll help let Mycroft know I didn’t fly over here to fuck around with drugs like he always suspects.”

I’m frozen in disbelief as I watch Pat stretch her arm upwards, lean her temple against Sherlock’s, and put on a wide smile as she taps the camera button on her phone. Sherlock wears a close-lipped, tight smile, but there is an unusual friendliness in his eyes. It seems that he’s learned how to do his own PR.

“So, Detective Holmes, what case brings you to New York?” Pat says when she brings her phone back down, as if Sherlock was her newest friend.

“He’s looking into the Tod Truman posters,” I answer for him before he can start bragging. “It’s suspected that the photograph shows a real corpse.”

“That thing that they said was by Stein?” asks Pat. “Oh man, if you go public with this case people will go wild!” Then she lifts her phone slightly, thumbs poised over the onscreen keyboard as she’s about to give their Instagram photo a caption. “Do you mind if I…?”

I expect Sherlock to flat out forbid her, but he continues to shock me: he shrugs and waves a hand, the one not currently wielding a rusty axe. “Let them go wild.”

“Sherlock Holmes is in the city to investigate the Stein posters,” Pat says aloud to us as she taps it into her phone. She looks up again after sending it through. “This is so cool, you guys.”

“I’ve been called plenty of things in my line of work, but never ‘cool’,” Sherlock says plainly. “Thank you, Pat.”

She grins at him for a moment – then it falters. “How’d you know my name was-“

“Well, sitting and chatting over coffee won’t solve a murder,” Sherlock interrupts, springing up from his chair. “Delmare, let’s go back upstairs; I’ve got to show you my progress thus far. Besides, staying here and swinging an axe around will only unsettle your customers further.

It takes me three full seconds to register that he’s speaking to me using my alias, let alone to process what he’s said. Then I jump up from my own chair to follow behind Sherlock as he makes his way to the exit. I’m too dazed to reply.

“Rita, wait.” I suddenly felt Pat’s fingers around my wrist.

I look back at her. She stares at me with an extraordinary mix of unease, and shock, and wonder.

“Yes, Pat?”

She swallows before answering. “I gotta go, but I’ll come by your place tomorrow to pick up my stuff. Okay?”

My face feels a little numb. But I’m able to command movement of my lips to reply, “Yes. Of course.”

She smiles one last time, that warm, sorry smile, and she lets my hand go for me to leave the café.

* * *

 

“How much progress could you have possibly made in the span of three hours?” I grumble as Sherlock and I trudge up the steps to the third floor where my flat is.

“Frustratingly little,” Sherlock growls, swinging the axe in his hand with a little more force than necessary. “The trip to meet with my associate who lent me this axe ate up some of the time I could have used for research.”

“Would it have been possible to, oh, I don’t know, have done your research in the time you spent interrupting my conversation with my girlfriend?”

“ _Ex-_ girlfriend, you mean,” he corrects. I realize that he’s in that agitated state that makes him more insensitive in his pointing out things. “If the tail end of your discussion with her was anything to go by, I’d wager you’d just broken up. Condolences.”

“We’re in the _process_ of breaking up,” I snap. Then I realize what I’d just repeated, and I feel my face warm in embarrassment.

“Oh for God’s sake, what do I care about all these useless variations of stages in a relationship,” Sherlock scoffs as he strides towards my door. “It won’t soften the fact that it’s over and it won’t help us solve my case in the sli-“

I watch him struggle with the doorknob for several seconds; it makes for excellent petty revenge. Then I clear my throat and, when he turns to me with an insolent expression on his face, I thoroughly enjoy watching it melt off as I lift my key to his view.

“Another rule of being my tenant,” I tell him coolly. “I open all the doors.”

He gives me a last snarling look before stepping aside.

“Now, I _am_ genuinely eager to know,” I say as we step into my kitchen. “What have you been able to gather? Besides the axe.”

“A starting point, at the least,” Sherlock replies as he slides into one of the chairs at my kitchen table, where his laptop sits. He drops the axe to the floor in a loud clang before he opens the laptop and boots it up. “The poster model’s face was too bashed in to match him up with anything, so there’s no use in looking at recent deaths or missing persons’ reports. I decided on another entry point and looked into this Stein artist’s work history.”

“What did you find?” I ask as I take the chair across from him. “Besides incomprehensible postmodernism?”

“The same old material, over and over.” He scrolls and taps, too absorbed in rereading his available information to remember to show the screen to me. “Gore. Animal parts. Political sentiments. All supposedly critiques on society’s scavenging nature, if these insufferably pretentious columns in these art magazines are to be believed.”

“ _You’re_ an insufferably pretentious column,” I drawl because it’s too good to pass up, but he doesn’t seem to hear me.

“I _was_ able to figure this out, however. Reports and reviews of Stein’s work only go back to March 2012, the month they released their first piece, ‘ _Onlookers’_ : a wall of strips of flypaper with the ‘police line do not cross’ type printed across them, found in a Brooklyn alleyway. Dead rats stuck to the flypaper. It was the only work they ever signed, signaling their debut. It’s also the same month their official website went live. Before that, nothing. No urban installations in New York of similar style and theme.”

“So, it’s a dead end…?”

He smirks. “To others, probably. To me? The simultaneous launch of both the work _and_ the website signals a healthy amount of confidence. This isn’t a fresh art school graduate dipping their toe into the local scene. This is a professional, with experience, who’s planned this persona and schedule of works for months. It could only mean they’ve been visible in the media before, under a different name.”

I raise an eyebrow. “So, possibly, Stein’s real name.”

“Precisely,” Sherlock says, his eyes still trained on his laptop screen. “I lined up Stein’s activity with the timelines of other New York artists, to find anyone who may have stopped a short time before _Onlookers’_ and Stein.com’s unveilings. Anyone who overlapped or had consistent work of their own during that year, I eliminated from my list.”

“This is ‘frustratingly little progress’ to you?” I ask in disbelief.

“Luckily, only one artist had a timeline that matched up sensibly with Stein’s,” he goes on. “He had a trickle of critics’ reviews from 2010 to 2011 for _paintings_ of corpses and viscera. Then, absolutely no recorded activity in the six months leading up to Stein’s debut.” He finally turns his laptop towards me, to show a photograph of an oil work depicting a rotting rabbit. “This article says his name is Lars Kidman.”

I look at the painting for a long, long time. When he rotates the laptop back to face him, I meet his eyes, with all my honest wonder. “You’re extraordinary as always.”

I expect him to scoff. Or roll his eyes at what sounds like a lazy attempt at flattery. But he just closes his mouth. He stares back at me, still and unblinking. I may be fooling myself to think I see a hint of a blush creeping beneath his cheekbones…

Suddenly my kitchen table begins to vibrate, and I realize it’s coming from his laptop, which is playing a very loud, familiar buzzing sound effect.

I only catch his mortified expression for half a second before I’m distracted by my own amused delight. “Are you getting a _Skype call?_ ”

“Not a word, not a _single_ word,” he hisses at me as he hurriedly taps at his touchpad. “They think I’m in a hotel.”

My smile disappears. Was he ordering me silent in my own home? “ _Who_ thinks you’re in a hotel?” I demand.

My question is answered as Sherlock’s face is lit by a white glow from his screen, then I hear a low crackle of background noise, then a familiar voice: “Sherlock?”

“Hello, John.”

I have to clamp my hand over my mouth to keep from exclaiming in surprise. To his credit, Sherlock barely even flicks his eyes up to look at me, keeping the guise of a man alone in a hotel room.

I hear a chuckle. “Bloody miracle you even answered this. Thought you’d be running down a darkened alleyway waving a sharp weapon at a suspect by this time.”

“You caught me while I was doing some online research,” Sherlock explains. Underneath the table I hear the axe scrape against my kitchen tile as he pushes it away with his foot.

“Well. Lucky. This is enough evidence to keep Lestrade and your brother at bay for another day. How’s it going then? The case?”

“I’ve got the usual starting obstacles, but it’s nothing I can’t manage,” Sherlock shrugs. “Besides, I’ve been able to find a bit of help.” At this point he does glance up at me briefly. I’m caught off-guard, so all I can do to react is draw in a quiet breath. He looks back at his screen.

“Sherlock...” I hear John Watson begin. “…You sure about not letting me go there with you?”

Sherlock shifts a little in his seat. “I could hardly ask you to put your life on hold to tag along behind me on a case partway across the world.”

“Sherlock,” John Watson says again, sounding frustrated. “We’ve been over this before – “

“Is that Sherlock?” I hear an elderly woman chirp. The sound of shuffling, of John pulling his chair a bit, I suspect to let someone else lean into view – “Oh, dear, look at you! I miss you already. Can you see me?”

“Good evening, Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock drawls. “How was the move-in? I expect you assisted the Watsons in getting comfortably settled into 221?”

Move-in? Plural _Watsons_? I’m able to remember myself and not ask those out loud, but I do shoot him a look of bewilderment.

“’Comfortable’ and ‘settled’ are things our lot will never quite get right,” pipes in a new voice. It’s female, and completely unfamiliar to me. It has a bit of rasp and age, but it’s low and warm. I hear a smile in it. “Hello, Sherlock.”

“Hello, Mary,” he greets. “How do you like your new flat?”

“Oh, it’s dusty and dark and I mistook your test dummy for John thrice in one day,” she answers. “I love it.”

“I’m not _that_ pale,” John Watson objects.

“I’ll move the dummy back to your bedroom for you, Sherlock dear,” croaks Mrs. Hudson affectionately.

The next sound I hear, nothing could have ever prepared me for. It rocks my state off-balance harder than Sherlock’s unannounced arrival this morning did.

I hear the gurgle, and whine, of an infant.

“Ssh, ssh,” the voice called Mary soothes it.

I search Sherlock’s face for any kind of sign – that he’s as confused as me, that there is some sort of glitch in the program of reality that’s caused this alien child to materialize in _his_ sacred home. He remains stone-faced, even relaxed.

“Allo, Willa,” coos John in a baby-talk voice. “Allo, wallo, Willa.” The child responds with a pleased squeal.

“You’re five hours ahead of New York, yes?” Sherlock cuts in. “Shouldn’t you be putting her down for bed now?”

“We were just about to,” says Mary. She makes a sound of effort, as if lifting the baby and putting her down onto – judging by the increased volume of its coos – John’s lap. “We just wanted to make sure the whole team was here to tell you good night.”

“Unnecessary, but noted,” Sherlock says flatly.

“Hurry back, alright, mate?” John asks him.

“Good night.”

A noisy, uncoordinated chorus of “good nights” emanates from his laptop. A tap and a click, and the sound and light are gone, and it’s just him and me alone in my home again.

I don’t know what to say. I simply watch his face while he keeps his gaze on his screen. It’s still cool and expressionless, but… the arrogant tension in his brows and mouth has disappeared. Now he only looks tired.

“Sherlock,” I begin, and the concern in what I say next startles even me. “Are you alright…?”

“We’re going to have to find other mentions of Lars Kidman on the internet,” he says, typing. “You have your own laptop, yes? If you could get to searching for a website, or contact details or an address, we could make this go twice as fast.”

He is impermeable. I decide that my questions can wait until after the mystery is solved. “Let me get it from my bedroom.”


	3. Open

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to everyone who commented and gave kudos! I really appreciate you. :) Hope to hear more of your ideas soon!

“This Lars Kidman baffles me,” I say to Sherlock some time later, after the sun had set and the only illumination in my kitchen is the glows from our laptops. “No photos. No address. If he ever had a website, it’s gone. No mention of contact details in any articles on his art or his exhibits. No social media profiles whatsoever when I search his name. He’s more elusive than his Stein persona – if that _is_ him.”

“Of course it’s him,” Sherlock snaps, his eyes still fixed on his own screen. He’s shed his coat now, and draped it over the back of his chair.

“This one critic called him a recluse – it looks like being invisible was part of his artistic manifesto,” I say as I roll my eyes. “Has Jessica Greene responded to you yet? What did she say?”

“Nothing that helped,” he growls, pulling his phone out from his pocket and tossing it carelessly onto the tabletop to show his contempt. “She told me the same thing the internet’s been telling me for the past hour. He’s faceless. Never wrote. Never showed up to his own exhibits.”

I snort. “Who knows – maybe ‘Lars Kidman’ is also an alias and this bloke goes even further back.”

“An alias can only hide you so well, Rita Delmare,” he snarls at me without a hint of humor.

I drop my smile. “Oh, but the one you gave me before shipping me off to an apartment in Greece I’d never seen was foolproof, was it?”

“You know what I mean,” he snaps, pinching between his eyes. “A false name alone won’t protect anyone. It has to come in a package – an address, a biography, associates, papers – all of which I supplied you with back then.”

“And all of which I was able to make again for myself afterwards,” I say with a glare. I go back to my screen. “Let’s approach this from a different angle.”

Sherlock sighs. “What did you have in mind?”

I have to think about it for a moment. “Let’s not look at the man himself but the spaces he occupied. Like… what galleries did he exhibit at? Surely if he reserved their showroom for an evening they’d have his information.”

He narrows his eyes a bit. “Take Stein’s exhibit history. I’ll look into Kidman.”

A few minutes of trying out different search queries and clicking various articles lead me to tell him this: “Stein’s a dead end. All of his exhibits are organized and funded by loyal fans. It’ll be their names listed in the reservations.”

“I’ve got something for Lars Kidman,” he reports. “He did shows at two galleries most often: Damiani and Pure Vision. We can contact them tomorrow and look into their records.”

 “God forbid he got those galleries via proxy, too,” I sigh. “If we gather nothing from them, we may have to try going to the local police.”

“And we know how reliable _they_ can be,” Sherlock scoffs. Despite the tension between us only moments ago, I have to crack a smile.

“Well, I’m just about ready for dinner,” I say, pushing back my chair. “What are you thinking? Chinese? Something from downstairs?”

“What, _now?_ ” he says, staring at me like I’d asked to set him on fire. “In the middle of a case?”

I promptly sit back down. “Right. You’re like that.”

“By all means, go ahead and waste half an hour eating something you could eat tomorrow,” Sherlock tells me, making a shooing motion as he looks back to his laptop. “I’ll be here doing actual work.”

I can’t help but gaze at him in fascination. “You’re always going to be you, aren’t you?”

“What does that even mean?” he asks, wrinkling his nose. “Why would I ever change?”

“Then why did John and his family move into 221?” I probe. “I would have thought you’d be over the moon to have him back in your flat. But you’ve escaped to partway across the globe.”

“Both Gallery Damiani and Pure Vision are closed tonight according to their schedule,” he says, scrolling. “I doubt anyone will answer their hotline at this hour.”

“Why do your brother and Lestrade suspect you’ve come here to ‘fuck with drugs’?”

“There are no matches among Kidman’s and Stein’s galleries. It’s actually very telling.”

“Why are you really here, Sherlock?” He can avoid food and people but I will never allow him to avoid _me._ “Do you really find this case as compelling as you tell me?”

“Why don’t you tell me if you really find this café ‘business venture’ of yours as rewarding as you say,” Sherlock snarls, shoving his laptop away. “Since you’re so fond of interviews.”

“I’m not imposing on anyone by doing it,” I say. “But here you are, as my ‘tenant’.”

He actually looks a bit stung by that. Part of me considers taking it back, but then he growls, “…As if you don’t possess a track record of _imposing_ on anyone.”

My face, and voice, are ice. “You can scavenge on my past if I can scavenge on yours.”

He scoffs. “Let me know if you find anything about me that’s worse than having blackmailed an entire country.”

I grip the edge of the kitchen table. “Funny. The first time you learned I’d been able to do that, you were entranced.”

“The _first time_. I must admit I became rather disappointed at the end of it when your downfall was a dear-diary crush.”

My chair scrapes the tile sharply as I stand up. He stops rolling his eyes to stare up at me, startled. I stare back. My palms sting against the metal edge of the tabletop.

“Don’t you ever belittle me like that.” I say. “Ever.”

His mouth opens slightly, as if he wants to respond. But there’s only silence.

Without another word, I close the lid of my laptop, turn around, and walk to the hallway and into my bedroom, for the rest of the night.

* * *

 

“I think I’ll just trash this toothbrush,” Pat tells me as she takes the object out of her cardboard box and tosses it into my kitchen waste bin. “It’s all old and frayed.”

“Planting your own evidence, very cunning,” I tut, and she grins at me.

Morning light spills into my flat, and my mind’s eye cruelly has it highlight all of the empty spots Pat is leaving behind as she takes her things back. The back of my armchair where she usually drapes her spare sweater. The corner of my counter where she puts down her mug. The space between two pairs of my boots where she leaves her bathroom slippers.

“Hey, where’s Sherlock Holmes?” she asks as she claps the dust off her hands. “I thought he was staying with you.”

“I haven’t seen him since last night,” I reply coolly, and that’s the truth. I haven’t spoken to him since we argued, and I have no plans to.

Pat shrugs, then heaves her box up into her arms. “If you find anything that I forgot, could you just FedEx it over to Manchester? I’ll pay the shipping fee.”

 “Alright.”

We stand in silence for a long moment, looking anywhere but into each other’s faces.

“Ah,” she says softly. “Before I forget.”

I turn to her again, just as she pulls one arm out from under her box to pluck the photograph of us off my living room table.

I’m a little taken aback. “That’s-“

“If it’s okay, I want this for my own,” she says with a smile. “It’s my favorite picture of us.” Then she lowers her eyes. “I’m not sure how long you’ll want to have it out here, until you’ll want a change.”

There’s some hint of hurt, though not too much, when I tell her, “You don’t know how I feel.”

Pat looks straight at me again, searching – for what, I don’t know. “Have I ever?”

It’s as if something in my throat keeps my voice from travelling past my teeth. All I can do is watch her smile at me, one more time, before turning to head for the door.

“Pat, wait,” I’m finally able to force out, when she’s halfway into the outside hall. She turns to look at me, puzzled.

Won’t I miss those dark lashes. “I think you’ll be incredible. In everything you do.”

She grins, and it’s not sad, nor humorous, nor ironic. “What can I say? I’m just trying to follow your lead.”

Pat turns around and disappears into the hallway.

When the sound of her footsteps fades away with her, I put my hands on my hips as I survey the damage in my flat.

 It’s been slowly growing barer and barer, what with Pat leaving today, and my miniature ship falling off the shelf just yesterday.

It makes me wonder if the next thing permanently departing from it should be me. It’s not an unattractive decision. My home _has_ been growing emptier. Well, except for –

I hear a muffled smash from another room and whip around. It dissolves into the sound of crumbling material, almost as if a wall had been crashed through.

Well, shit.

I sprint for my guest bedroom. _I thought that prick had gone out!_

When I shove the door open, a faint cloud of dust has invaded the tiny space, so I only see the outline of the one-person bed and the drawer beside it. It dissipates to reward me the sight of Sherlock Absolute-Twat Holmes just standing there like an absolute twat, holding that stupid axe in his hand, his eyes locked on the enormous bloody hole he’s just smashed into the cream-colored prefab wall he shares with my master bedroom.

“What the fuck have you done?” I all but shriek.

He turns to look at me as if he’d just noticed me come in. “I made a hole.”

“I will shoot you. I will _shoot_ you in the _knees._ Why did you do that?”

“I didn’t mean to!” he raises his hands, lifting the axe along with them. “I was aiming for the bedpost! I was bored waiting for word back from Greene and wanted to test out what kind of force would be enough to cause that damage on the victim’s skull – “

“You were going to swing an axe at my _bed?_ ”

“Just the bedpost!”

I cover my face with both my hands. For a handful of seconds I fantasize shooting Sherlock Holmes in the kneecaps, impaling him on a dozen spikes, then hanging his body in a museum where it will be praised as the masterpiece of the decade.

“If it helps at all,” he says, interrupting me just as I’m tacking his corpse to the wall of the Met. “I’m sorry.”

I part my fingers so I can glower at him from between them. He actually looks a little sheepish, with the hand not wielding the axe dug into his trouser pocket. The absence of an arrogant air actually makes him appear younger, at least, in that moment.

I sigh as I drag my hands off my face. “This is coming out of your rent.”

Sherlock straightens back up. “Of course.”

“And I don’t think I want that axe in my home anymore. Or anywhere near it. As soon as you’re done doing… ‘research’ with it, I want you to dispose of it as far away from here as possible.”

He nods. “Yes.”

I draw in a breath. Part of me wants to give him a punishment even more severe, but I’m almost afraid he’d find a way to turn it into another disaster I have to cover up. “Good.”

Sherlock seems to be just surprised over my having nothing more to say. I think I may be, too. He nods quickly again.

I take a few more steps to study the hole he’s shattered through our wall. “Jesus. Are you really sure they needed this much force to cause that dent in the victim’s skull?”

“Sixty percent sure,” he answers. “I’m drawing knowledge from previous cases – such as the boomerang man.”

I snort. “Surely a heavy axe and a flying wooden toy would require vastly different amounts of applied force.”

“Right,” he concedes – almost a little too quickly.

I turn to him, but he’s already looking away to some other corner of the room. I’m not sure of it, but I almost spot a small, self-satisfied smile –

Did he bring up the boomerang man just to keep the conversation going?

I narrow my eyes at him, but he seems to pretend not to notice. I decide that it’s too early in the morning for a confrontation.

“You can spend today researching for a nearby service that can repair my wall,” I tell him as I wave my hand, heading back for the door. “If you need me, I’ll be in the café.”

“Noted,” he replies. I swear to god, if he’s still wearing that insufferable smirk…

“You’re not off the hook for this,” I warn, turning to glare at him. “Or for last night.”

He repeats, this time with less pep, “…Noted.”

I make a curt nod and sweep out of the room. I won’t let him think he gets to initiate the peace talks. Rule of being my tenant: I open all doors.


	4. Square One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The usual: lots of gushy gooey love to those who left comments and kudos. It really is something when you have this private work for months and suddenly other people are taking the journey with you. :) Enjoy the chapter!

When I enter Café Margate, rush hour is over, but not before leaving significant damage in its wake. The blender area is covered in puddles and splashes of ingredient, and the condiments station is in chaos. Rushing people brush past me, knocking aside the chairs and tables in their path, but somehow keeping their hot drinks balanced and unspilled. Peter is still accommodating a handful of customers in line, so I take a seat at a solo table while I wait for him.

I think of the accounting I have to do by the end of the month to busy myself. I think of racking up the prices of the iced menu items since it’s been growing warmer.

I think of Pat, and the empty spaces she left in my flat upstairs. I think of Sherlock, and the hole he hacked into my wall and the words he’d spat at me last night.

The last customer in front of Peter is taking awfully long. From my view of her from behind, it’s a middle-aged woman, ashy-blonde hair done up in a frizzy bun, the too-tight temples of her spectacles not quite settled on top of her ears. Even under her coat, which is oddly thick for today’s weather, she pokes the curve of her bum out noticeably as she leans forward with her elbows on the counter. I can’t hear what she’s saying, but she speaks liltingly, almost flirtingly. Peter smiles and nods without a hint of irritation.

I have plenty of older women as daily customers in Café Margate, but I’ve never seen this one before. Yes, I get newcomers too, but this one: she acts so casual and relaxed in what’s supposed to be a foreign environment that I feel a little unsettled.

I’m moved into action when I see her seemingly excuse herself to go to the loo, just to the left of the cash register – I notice that she hadn’t ordered anything.

I spring from my seat and march right up to Peter, who’s now absent-mindedly smoothing his hands over his black apron.

“Peter, who was that?”

“Who, the lady?” he asks, glancing at the door of the loo. “I dunno.”

I cross my arms. “What did she say to you?”

He shrugs. “I dunno, random stuff. She told me she was new and was asking me for directions to stuff. Then she started kinda flirting with me, like, where does a handsome guy like you like to go for fun, who set up this café and I can see why they hired you, et cetera.”

My blood runs cold for some reason, but I try to focus. “She didn’t order a drink.”

“Nah. I mean – what was I supposed to say? ‘I’m flattered, ma’am, but I’m into dudes, do you want one shot of espresso or two in your iced mocha’?”

I glare at him. “Go wipe down the blenders or something.”

He gives me a cheeky salute. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

When he turns away, I look at the door to the loo – too late. It’s swinging back and forth slightly, as if just having been pushed open.

I whip my head to the main entrance – the middle aged woman with her coat and frizzy bun has just exited, and she disappears into the current of New Yorkers on the hot street outside.

I sprint towards the loo and barge in, not giving myself a second to recover before I turn my head wildly this way, there – for any sign of anything: a tracking device, a spy cam, even a bomb… it seems like the same old black-tiled, cramped bathroom, but I refuse to trust my senses.

I plant my palm against the wall and step up onto the toilet seat to check the tiny windowpane right above it. Nothing suspicious. I bend at the waist and lift the tank lid off the toilet – enough light floods the interior to show me that nothing new has been put inside.

A sudden thought makes me feel dizzy – what if it’s not an instrument for spying that she left? What if, instead, it was something that was a different kind of undesirable: a dead rat, or drugs, or even a weapon – something that could get Margate closed down. There’s more than one way to sabotage your target.

Quickly rolling my sleeves up, I get down to search the floor. I check behind the toilet, then crawl over to look behind the sink, throwing my hand out behind it to grope for anything that could have been planted. Nothing but smooth tile. I take a grip of the front cover of the tissue dispenser attached to the wall, and yank it off hard: nothing but more tissue and the roll it’s coming from.

My heart is beating out of my ears. I have to pause and take several deep breaths as I try to make sense of the situation – how I ended up on my knees, in the loo, searching frantically for something that was never there.

No rats, no drugs, no guns. No tracking device, no spy cam, no bomb. The woman had simply come and gone. Was she nothing more than an unusual customer?

I close my eyes and put a hand over my mouth, trying to calm my breathing. You’re being paranoid, I tell myself. No one is chasing you. They all think you’re in Japan. It’s been over a year. No one is chasing you.

You’re safe here. You don’t have to run anymore. No one is chasing you.

It’s been over a year. No one is chasing you.

No one is chasing you.

It’s still a couple minutes more before I can hold my hand up against the light and one hundred percent swear it’s not shaking.

I’m angrily forcing the lid of the tissue dispenser back into its place just as a customer walks in to use the loo, bewildered.

* * *

 

Some hours later, when I push the door into my flat open, Sherlock is leaning at my window, looking out at the streets below.

“What on earth are you doing?” I ask. “Everyone can see you from there. What if someone – you brought cigarettes?”

The faint coil of smoke I can see tells me what I need to know. “…What’s wrong?”

Sherlock turns his head ever so slightly, so that I see the curve of his cheekbone against the sunlight outside. I stand very still.

“I was looking at the missing persons page of the NYPD,” he tells me.

Something inside me curls in dread. “And?”

His profile vanishes as he turns back to look out the window. He takes a drag of his cigarette.

“Lars Kidman was declared missing five months ago.”

I wince. That was _long_ before the posters went up around Soho… around two months prior.

“The page doesn’t list whoever filed the missing person report, so we can’t even find out who knew him. I thought, at least, it would give us a photograph of his face,” Sherlock goes on. “…They had a profile-shot. He’s nearly turned away. Caucasian, brown hair, glasses. That’s all I could gather.”

My silence seems to tell him what my answer is. He growls in irritation and runs his left hand through his hair. That’s when I notice the layered gauze bandage wrapped around his palm. “What happened to your hand?”

“Hmm?” he goes, straightening up from the window and turning to me. He looks down at his injury. “Oh. Well. I went and returned the axe like you told me to.”

“Oh, but – _‘returned’_? I told you to _get rid_ of it…” I blink. “You returned it to your log cabin friend?” I notice the uneasy way his eyes shift left and right, anywhere but me. “…He wasn’t your friend, was he?”

He angrily stubs out his cigarette on my windowpane. “I returned it in mint condition! He didn’t have to _throw_ things at me.”

I sigh. “You’ve got to make everything a near-death experience, haven’t you.”

With wide, brisk strides, I cross the room, and – “What are you doing,” Sherlock asks, suddenly tense – I take his wounded hand with both of my own and pull it closer to examine the damage.

I can see from the width of the white bandage, and the size and spread of browning blood, that it’s a long, but shallow, gash. The log cabin man must have flung something sharp at him, a knife or a smaller axe, and Sherlock’s instinct was to catch it. I cringe as I imagine the impact, the sudden bloom of pain.

The size and shape of his hand are just as I remember them. The vast, creased palm, his bony fingers. Even with the layers of gauze covering the back of his hand I think I can feel the channels of veins pressing against my fingertips. For someone so pale I’m surprised by how rough his skin actually feels, how I can see faint tracks of dirt in the lines of age that cut into it.

As gently as I can, I run my thumb over the strip of bandage, tracing the dried streak of blood. Suddenly all his fingers bend a little and the whole of his palm draws back a bit – I realize it’s because he’s taken in a sharp breath.

I immediately drop both my hands from his. “Sorry. Did I hurt you?”

He takes his injured hand into his other. His brows are furrowed, a corner of his mouth raised into a grimace. But beneath that I almost see the remnant of a blush that had crept to his cheeks, now fading fast. “No. Yes. Just a slight sting. I was just surprised.”

I feel a little guilty. “Have you put antiseptic on it?” I ask. He nods, his eyes still directed to his wound. “So… you don’t need me to do anything?” He shakes his head.

He seems so frustrated. I can’t help but take a last step forward. “Sherlock… this isn’t square one. We’ll do it like what you did with the axe. Find a new entry point.”

Sherlock flicks his eyes up towards me. The expression on his face isn’t annoyance, or even skepticism. It’s almost… appreciation. For my determination? My sympathetic words? It’s a tired sort of appreciation, but it’s there.

Now it’s my turn to avoid meeting his gaze. I awkwardly jab a thumb in the direction of my bedroom. “I got into… a bit of a mess myself today. I’m going to go clean up.”

In a split second, Sherlock snaps back to his default air of curiosity and insolence. “A mess? How could the impeccable Irene Adler ever let that happen?”

I point a finger at his bandaged hand. “You’ll shut up unless you want me to finish that cabin man’s job,” I say.

He only rolls his eyes with a smirk as I spin around to leave.

* * *

 

No matter how warm the days grow it’s always peculiarly so cool and still in the nighttime. The sentimental part of me is reminded of the weather in London. The outside view from my bedroom is a dull pattern of windows from the building across the street, but if I look closely enough, faint hints of life and motion in the sky and streets reflect off their dark glass.

I’m in a fresh dressing gown after my shower, wringing my damp hair in a towel as I study the sight outside my window for the thousandth time, when I hear a low, muffled voice behind me say, “Irene.”

I yelp in alarm as I whip around, my hands tensed into fists – but no one is there. My eyes dart to my door, to my bathroom, my bed and my desk, its reading lamp my only illumination. No intruders.

My eyes are still wide, and I’m trying to make myself stop hyperventilating while I convince my mind that it was only imagination, when that same low voice goes again, “Sorry. Did I surprise you?”

Something clicks. I look over to the part of wall to the left of my queen size bed: at the damned hole Sherlock had hacked between our rooms earlier this morning. Layers of peeled wallpaper and remnants of drywall prevent me from seeing directly through, but there’s no doubt the sound is coming from there.

I release my fists. “You are such a prick.”

“Irene,” he says again, unaffected. “Pat’s username on Instagram is spelled p-a-t-p-l-z, correct?”

I freeze at the mention of her name, mere hours after we’d parted ways. But I force myself to say, “What? Why on earth would you – “

“The photo,” he goes on. “She took a photo of us to upload to Instagram.”

In my head, briefly, I rewind to those surreal few seconds from yesterday afternoon. “…Yes. That’s her screen name.”

There’s silence for a long moment; I imagine him tapping and scrolling through his phone, looking at her profile. I urge, “Well?”

“She uploaded the photo immediately after we’d taken it,” he reports. “3:26pm yesterday, Tuesday.”

I walk up closer to the hole in the wall. “Yes, so? Why did you feel the need to bring up my ex-girlfriend so recently after she’d dumped me?”

“’Dumped’ you? Haven’t heard you use that term about the situation before. Anyway, I bring it up because: today is Wednesday.”

“…Yes. I’m aware. The end of Wednesday, in fact.”

“Precisely,” Sherlock’s voice answers, rising in energy. “I spent the last hour scouring the web. New installations of the Stein posters show up in a new location every Wednesday, remember? A snapshot of it would be spreading on social media by now. But it’s the end of Wednesday, and there’s nothing. Not an article or photo or tweet.”

I kneel down directly before the wall, stunned. “You’re sure?”

“Of course I am,” he says, sounding irked. “I used every possible term in my search queries. ‘Tod Truman’, ‘the one true way’, ‘Soho’. Then when I searched ‘Stein’ on Instagram, the most recent post – the only post this week, in fact – was Pat’s photo of us.”

My fingers clutch tight at my dressing gown. “You’re saying… you think the culprit saw her photo yesterday? And saw the caption – “

“’Sherlock Holmes is in the city to investigate the Stein posters’, exclamation point,” his voice reads it aloud to me. “…number-symbol cheerio, number-symbol it’s-a-mystery. What does that even mean?”

“Her caption mentions your name and your case,” I blurt out. “Stein must have read it and gotten afraid to put up new posters.”

“Perhaps not even ‘Stein’,” Sherlock says. “Stein previously killed insects and animals for art, and was unfazed by the backlash. He simply put out more and more work that escalated in violence. Evaded the police and PETA activists throughout all of it. A very experienced killer. To lose confidence now? To stop simply because an unarmed freelance detective, not backed up by law enforcement, has been given the job? It’s either a massive compliment to me, or a very telling clue that the Stein putting up these posters is not the same Stein as before.”

I’m breathless. “Someone is posing as the original Stein.”

“Yes,” he confirms to me, enthusiastic. In my mind’s eye I can see him kneeling before the hole as well, as focused on me as I am on him. “This is not an experienced killer. This is an amateur who doesn’t know the game, who isn’t a psychopath.” He slowly takes in a breath. “Kidman’s disappearance doesn’t have to change a thing. His timeline still fits. He could still have been Stein – “

“ – before whoever _this_ is made him go missing five months ago and took over,” I finish, my heart beating rather hard.

He sounds just as exhilarated. “Exactly.”

I let us share a silent few seconds to savor our breakthrough. Afterwards, I ask, “Then who is it?”

“I thought at first it would be a rival artist of Stein’s. But why would they want to boost Stein’s reputation with a daring new piece? This is someone who wanted Kidman dead. Someone close enough to him that they thought up the Truman posters to act as a sort of celebration.”

“Sherlock,” I interrupt. “You don’t think… the dead man on the poster is Kidman himself?”

“Oh,” he says, and I can actually hear the wide grin in his voice. “ _That_ would be interesting.”

I nod even if he can’t see me. “That settles it. Tomorrow we go to the last gallery that Kidman reserved as himself, not as Stein. Pure Vision, was it? We interrogate the curator and scan the guestbook for names of people close to him. We have a better chance finding his friends in his old shows rather than his new ones under the Stein pseudonym – those were attended by hundreds of fans. We’ll work with what we gather from there.”

I still sense his smirk when he answers me, after a moment, “Now, aren’t you relieved I came back into your life with something so exciting?”

I roll my eyes, turning so I can lean back against the wall, right next to our little channel. “Not without destroying my property. Seems that’s the _only_ way you ever come back into my life.”

“ _Rented_ property,” he corrects me, though not impolitely. “Mind, it’s not an entirely one-sided exchange. I should thank you for bringing me to interesting places as well.”

My smile disappears. “What, like Pakistan?”

Again, only silence passes through our channel in the wall. But this time it’s thick, and heavy. I stare ahead at nothing in particular, just as shocked at my own words as he probably is.

When he speaks again, it’s no longer playful. “That’s… not what I meant. I’m sorry if – “

“Don’t apologize,” I interrupt him. “It’s not your words that upset me…. I’ve been meaning to bring this up between us since you first arrived.”

I imagine him also sitting up against the wall, his back possibly aligned square with mine. I imagine his jaw working as he tries to think of a response. “What about Pakistan?”

Yes. What _about_ Pakistan? It’s not Sherlock’s involvement that comes to my mind first.

It’s the countless nights and days in a cramped, filthy cell. Stale flatbread and murky water for meals. My only source of light, a weak, flickering incandescent bulb only ever switched on when one of my captors entered the room. My bed, cold cement.

My souvenirs from interrogations. Bruises and dents. A broken ankle and broken rib. Not being able to see for a day or so because my eyes are so swollen. For the longest time, even after I escaped, I couldn’t ever curl my body up while lying in bed because it reminded me of the position I assumed whenever they would knock me around.

Being informed of the date I would be killed. Seeing the sun for the first time in days (weeks?) when I am led out of my cell to the execution grounds, believing it to be the last sunrise of my life. Kneeling on the cement, closing my eyes and imagining each inch of my body disappearing from existence, willing myself to die simply because I decided so, from the sheer force of my own willpower, refusing to give my executioner the privilege of taking my life  –

“Irene?” Sherlock’s voice breaks through my daze.

I touch my fingers to my cheek – I’m not crying. But it takes me a few deep breaths. “I said, I’ve been meaning to ask. How did you get into their cell so easily?”

He says nothing for a moment. “I posed as a loyalist. Befriended a couple of them in charge of security. Didn’t take long for them to recruit me; they’re always looking for volunteers. As for your execution: terrorist leaders don’t actually get their hands dirty very often. They tend to leave it to the foot-soldiers. I made sure that I was given the honor.”

I nod again. I wonder if, through my thin prefab wall, he can perceive the movement of my head, off the wallpaper then back against it. “You make it sound so quick and simple. I’m sure it was riskier than that.”

“I won’t insult you by lying to you. It was. But I _had_ to make it quick and simple. One phase directly after the other, to ensure your rescue and our safety.”

“Which is why, right after we escaped, you drove me straight to the bay, handed me your forged documents in the car, and put me on that cargo boat without even a goodbye?” I ask.

From where I sit, the view outside my window has dimmed completely, leaving only a black void, my quiet room, and the space between me and him.

He’s paused for a while. Then, “Believe me, I did want to work in a stopover where I could look properly at your injuries and let you rest. But every way I plotted the scenario, it gave time for your captors to catch up to us.”

“It’s fine. I understand,” I say. Drawing my knees up to my chest, I continue, “I just brought up the time constraint because I realize only now on that I… never got to thank you. I would hope allowing you access to all my locations after that was thanks enough – “

“Don’t,” he responds, surprising me with his immediateness. His voice is hard, assertive. “There’s one thing I want you to know about what happened in Karachi. I didn’t do it so that you would owe me something back, or so I could dangle it over your head for the rest of your life. And, no, it wasn’t even as a form of apology for how I abandoned you in London by exposing your passcode. Not even that.”

I find myself staring at my fingers, which are shaking slightly at his mention of that evening in his brother’s house. But I keep listening.

He clears his throat. “The one thing I want you to know. I came for you in Karachi because I wanted to. I wanted you to stay alive.”

My hands are suddenly cold. I rest them, slightly curled, on my stomach. “The past couple of years have made you so open.”

Something tells me that his mind and the tension in his body relax at that. “Almost getting yourself and all your friends killed can do that to you.” He pauses. “I will probably regret this conversation in the morning.”

I can’t help but grin. “Nice to know you have the ability to regret _some_ of the things you do.”

“And I do regret some things,” he insists. “Like you said: I hardly allotted any extra time directly after we escaped the terrorist cell – “

“No, you were right. Extra time would have gotten us recaptured anyway,” I tell him. “Besides, I was of sound mind and body, strong enough to fend for myself right after you left me. What could we have possibly done in an additional few hours?”

I don’t expect the long, awkward silence that follows. I can’t even sense through our thin barrier if his body is shifting or if he’s breathing at all. It’s enough that I actually turn around at my waist, trying to peer past the tatters of wallpaper and shreds of drywall, through our channel, to see if he’s still even there.

A few seconds more, and Sherlock finally answers, “You’re right. I don’t know.”

I can tell by the tentativeness of his voice that that wasn’t the first response he’d thought of. I don’t think I’ll ever quite understand him – what on earth _did_ he think we could have done in a few hours? Sightseeing? A nice dinner?

Unless – but – no…

“You should sleep,” he pipes up again. “This has been a rather heavy conversation for us both.”

My first instinct is to challenge that, but then I decide that the last half hour really has exhausted me. “Alright. What will you do?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I’ll file away our findings for today and think on them a bit more.”

“In other words, you’re going to pace and mutter for hours,” I say. “Well. I truly am relieved you forgot your violin.”

To my surprise, I hear him hum in amusement at that. “Good night, Irene.” 


	5. Too Easy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! After this chapter I'll be taking a slightly longer break than usual, around 4-5 days. I have a busy week ahead and can't have any distractions. Don't worry, the next several chapters are definitely done, and just need to be proofread and polished. Unfortunately I just have some more pressing matters at hand. Again, thank you for the kudos, bookmarks, and most especially the wonderful conversations your comments have granted me. See you all soon!

The showroom of Pure Vision is a blindingly white, vast square space, its exposed-basement-style ceiling an endless network of pipes and its blank, wide walls seeming to stretch out into nothing.  Its curator is a small woman named Nanda.

“You’re right about Kidman keeping to himself,” she says as she leads us to the gallery office. “He didn’t even make his own reservation. It was a friend of his.”

“Surely you have their contact details, then?” asks Sherlock. He’s in full-on detective-mode today, his greatcoat giving him a striking dark silhouette against the showroom lights.

“Don’t know if we still hold that scrap of paper. But I’ve got the guestbook you want. Give me a second to find it; our 2012 cabinet is kind of a mess.” She swings the office door open and lets us step inside. It’s just a more compact, somehow even brighter version of the showroom.

“What was Kidman’s last exhibit about?” I ask as she rummages through the cabinets. I’d left management of the café to Peter today. It wasn’t just so I could come along with Sherlock…. for some reason, I felt as if stepping foot into that café again would only retrigger my paranoia that one of the customers – any of them – was there to spy on me.

 _Yes, chasing down a potential murderer sounds much safer_ , a nagging voice tells me, but I shoo it away.

“Oh, it was pretty interesting,” answers Nanda, pulling a record book out from a small stack. “His first venture into mixed media. I remember it because it was so gruesome. These, these thick layers of oil paint on top of clumps of dead insects glued to the canvas.” I cringe, but Sherlock seems unaffected. She dusts off the cover of the guestbook a little. “Here we are. _Modern Fossils:_ Guest List.”

She turns around and holds it open to the first page to us. Sherlock and I lean in, but it doesn’t take much of a thorough inspection to notice the strangest thing about it –

“Only _ten_ people attended?” he says, looking up at Nanda in curiosity.

She doesn’t even have to confirm it. I stare at the white page, at its blue lines – only ten blanks are filled, some not even having left comments and, I notice, Lars Kidman himself doesn’t have his name among them.

Nanda can only shrug. “He didn’t publicize it as far as I can remember. Only invited his friends and a bunch of critics.” She brings up her index finger and taps it on each of the names as she continues, “These five – they were the critics. _These_ five – they were his friends.”

Sherlock and I study those last five names – Henry Carper, Miyu Yoshimura, Vivienne Wills, Georgina Domingo, and “;”.

I point at the last. “Is that a semi-colon?”

“That’s the name that guy went by.”

Sherlock only lets out a frustrated huff of air. “None of them left their contact details. What the hell are we supposed to do with this information?”

“We’ve got their names,” I try to soothe him. “At least _they_ could be more easily findable than someone like Lars Kidman.”

“Actually, no, I think I know what can help,” Nanda says. We both look up at her. “I was there that night too, to facilitate things. There was… there was one attendee who didn’t sign the guestbook.”

“Who was it?” Sherlock asks.

“Another artist. Famous, too. Kira Corden.” I do recognize that name. “She wasn’t invited, but she found the details of the event somehow. Came over in the middle of the evening to accuse Lars of stealing her ideas. He wasn’t there for her to confront, obviously, so she couldn’t do much and left like five minutes after. She was still pretty mad.”

I raise an eyebrow. “That does help.”

“She’s also exhibited in this space. _Her_ contact details, I can give.”

“That _definitely_ helps,” says Sherlock, who’s grinning again. Thank God: I don’t know how many more dreary hours in my flat I can bear to watch him brood and mope.

Still – it does help me to realize that, in the handful of times I’ve collided with him, this is the one visit in which I’ve seen him smile the most frequently.

* * *

 

“This Kira Corden is notoriously hard to schedule an appointment with,” I tell Sherlock as we step back inside my flat, the morning still young. “She’s a very prolific artist up to now.”

“We’ll find a way in,” he replies with an air of arrogance. “We can check her blog, see what her current projects are. Then we pose as the service or delivery for whatever we can guess she’s had to order. Art materials, props, whatever it’ll be.” He grabs his laptop from my kitchen table, then strides over to my couch. “That should be innocuous enough for her studio’s receptionist to let us in.”

I take a seat on the cushion right next to him as he boots up his laptop. “It doesn’t have to be the only way. I won’t take long to try and take a little look into her search history… who knows, I may be able to appeal to some of her tastes.”

He turns to me, looking somewhat astonished. “I thought you’d left that line of work when you left the name Irene Adler.”

I have to smirk. “It doesn’t interest me anymore, I give you that. Doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten any of my tricks.”

Sherlock considers that – and breaks into a grin. At least the sixth one today, I think.

Some corner of his laptop screen lights up. And then: that familiar, beeping sound effect. It’s small and tinny in the space of my living room, but there’s no denying what it is. Sherlock is suddenly pale. We both turn to face his laptop.

Doctor Watson’s profile picture, a respectable headshot of him in a suit as he smiles into the camera, is centered on his screen, the Skype program informing us of his video call request.

“Do you need me to leave the room?” I ask, preparing to get up. “I could just slip into my – “

“No,” Sherlock says firmly, so quick that I nearly lose my balance. “You can stay.”

The next few seconds feel like a strange dream as I watch him maneuver his cursor over to the _reject_ option and click it. Doctor John Watson’s face vanishes from view, the video call sound is cut short, and the two of us are left alone again.

I stare at him. He keeps his gaze, cold and hard, directed to the Skype window. He clicks on John’s username, opening their chat, typing in, “Can’t talk right now. Hacking someone’s e-mail,” then promptly logs out of the program.

We’re silent for a while. The sun, still low and bright, finds its way into my window, shining up behind Sherlock and making him seem sharp and dark. His gaze is still lowered.

“Sherlock…” I begin. “Why did you reject his call?”

He puts his palm on the lid of his laptop and slowly closes it. “I don’t know if I can bear another miserable routine of hello, how-are-you, we-miss-you, come-back-soon.”

“Sherlock,” I say again, this time scolding. “You’ve risked your life to save these people multiple times. Aren’t you, I wouldn’t know, _glad_ to speak to them?”

He faces me, and I’m unsurprised to see that he’s angry. “Instructing me on how to feel, now, are we? I see manipulation is one of those tricks you say you haven’t forgotten.”

I know how to shut something down when I see its potential to catch fire. My back and shoulders straighten as if held up by steel. I keep my eyes cold and my voice hard as I say, “I told you not to belittle me. Ever.”

Sherlock glares at me like he’s about to retaliate. One of his hands has closed into a tight fist, and has even begun to tremble.

But then he lets out a growl of irritation and turns away to drop his face into his hands. “Just – forget I said anything. Forget it.”

I want to retain my fury. To reprimand him further…. But the way he’d given up so easily? Didn’t even bother to have the last word? I find that my primary reaction to him isn’t that rage I still wished to unleash. It’s not annoyance. Or even pity. I’m only sad.

Sherlock no longer has his head down; he’s rested his elbows on the surface of his laptop, his hands raised and linked together so that he can prop his chin on it. He stares blankly at my wall in front of us, with a crease of irritation still between his brows. I remember his injured hand as it comes back into my view, now wrapped in a fresh bandage.

It’s an admittedly foreign feeling for me, not knowing what to say next. So, as risky as it’s been for me, I go with my gut.

“Do you want to know,” I start softly, looking also to my wall. “Why I named the café ‘Margate’?”

He doesn’t speak, but I do detect that miniscule turn of his head, the shifting of his eyes to me.

I place both my hands on my knees. “It might surprise you. I didn’t name my Soho business like that to attract the right kind of crowd or manipulate anyone. I named it Margate, because… Margate is the name of the town where I was born.”

At the very edge of my sight, I can catch Sherlock turning more fully to me, putting his hands down on the laptop.

“I haven’t been there in over twenty years,” I continue. “I suppose… taking its name along with me is my own way of keeping it.” Now, I turn towards him. “You can return to London any time. What’s more, you have people waiting back there for you.”

He’s staring at me again. Over the past two days I’ve caught him doing it so often. Does he see something new every time?

“What was it like?” he asks. I don’t expect the question. “In Margate.”

I shake my head. “I barely remember it. I spent my childhood there with my parents before I went off to boarding school. But…” There’s a peculiar image in my head, and I have to bite my lip to concentrate on it. “…I only recall that our house was very near the sea.”

“The _sea_ ,” Sherlock repeats, sounding incredulous. I knit my eyebrows; it’s an odd reaction. It’s his turn to shake his head. “How different from my own childhood. A big, dark house in the middle of nowhere. Surrounded by grass.”

I have to snort. “A secluded and private area. Explains your tendency to walk on any ground in any place and act like you alone own it.”

That remark provokes a larger reaction from him than I expect. He takes the laptop off his lap and sets it aside on a couch cushion, out of sight, so he can face me better. “Too easy of a deduction. How about you: the taking of your hometown’s name can be seen as rather odd, seeing as you don’t really seem to hold any sentiment for the places you visit.”

Suddenly I feel uneasy, like he’d touched on something I thought I kept hidden. I narrow my eyes. “What do you mean by that?”

“In the time I’ve tracked you, you’ve never stayed in the same place twice.”

It _is_ true – I spend months at a time in plenty of cities, countries – then I never look back. “What do you expect of someone on the run?” I ask, my voice rising.

“Returning to old locations can be a tactic for confusing pursuers,” he raises his own volume to match mine. “I know _you_ know that. Yet you deliberately avoid old hiding spots; you move farther and farther away from them. You are _constantly_ on the run, and I presume, not just from enemy.” He reveals all this so smugly I could just _slap_ him in the _face._

“Do you know fear like me?” I ask, fire in my throat and under my skin. “Do you know what it’s like to look over your shoulder and wonder if anyone walking behind you is there to put a bullet in your spine?”

“I may be the only one,” he shoots back, his head bent low to meet my eyes. “I spent two years hunting a criminal network, not knowing if _they_ were the ones actually chasing me down.”

“Do you understand then?” I ask, breathless. Furious. “Understand how little I have to be seen and heard just to survive?”

“If it’s ever reduced you to locking yourself up in motel rooms on the outskirts of a city, denying yourself access to human contact or even food, then yes,” he nods fervently. “Do you understand _me?_ ”

“You experienced it short-term,” I snarl. “That – that is the rest of my life.”

“And it’s the rest of _my_ life,” he answers with the same anger. “As long as my friends are in danger, as long as my reputation – as long as _I_ keep them in danger, I’ll always have to be afraid!”

“There, you admit it!” I cry, and my voice is actually hoarse. “You refuse to contact them because you’re _afraid._ How many stabs at your pride did it take for you to give up and realize you’re just as lost as me?”

As the words tumble from my mouth I know immediately that this has gone too far; that I’ve shown too much of my hand. I don’t want to hear him reply, I don’t even want to see the reaction on his face. Still breathing hard I quickly turn away and begin to rise off the couch, to escape to my room.

Sherlock takes a hold of my wrist. Whatever scrap of patience I have left dissolves, and I twist back so I can roar some sort of threat at him so that he lets me go, but I move too fast and we both lose our balance, falling back onto the couch, and my hand reaches for his shoulder for support.

I feel his hands come to either side of my face, and his lips crash onto mine.

My soonest, basest instinct is to mirror him – I clamp my hands over his cheekbones and pull him even closer, gasping, twisting to have a better claim of his mouth, to press more of his chest and shoulders against mine –

Why is he so _infuriating?_ Why is he so eager to watch me unravel simply to confirm that he’s right, how could he speak to me so viciously when he is just as helpless himself, how could he pretend to be so all-knowing and articulate when now at his most desperate he’s reduced to _this?_

I part my lips farther and he does the same eagerly with a grunt; there’s not a sliver of space between our faces so I feel every warm gust of breath and every sweep of his tongue, every tiny shudder of surprise when my teeth come against his lip or chin – I push my hands farther back around his head to curl into his hair, already partly damp with sweat –

 _No!_ I bring my hands down to his collarbones and push him hard. For only a moment his mouth doesn’t pull away along with the rest of his body, but when it does we’re left staring at each other with widened eyes, breaths loud and heavy. His lips are still parted, reddened; his hands are still buried in my mane of hair.

“This isn’t… I’m not…” I try to say, but the end of every thought dies in my throat. “We… we shouldn’t be doing this…”

I feel his fingers slip away from my nape. “I’m sorry,” he stammers, already inching away from me on the sofa. “Not good? I don’t know what I – I didn’t mean to – “

“The case,” I blurt. And don’t I feel fucking ridiculous for it. “Kira Corden. We need to visit her by today.”

Sherlock shuts his mouth and blinks several times. I almost want to punch myself. For letting our argument to escalate, for dropping it so fast…

He suddenly nods. “Yes. Right.” Mechanical. Emotionless.

Without a word we get up from the couch, and we never look at each other once as we make for my door. Every step we take, side by side, feels like it brings him farther and farther away from me.


	6. Half Present

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!! Thank you for your patience! My week from hell isn't quite over but I'm taking a break in the middle of it to update this, not just because I want to work hard on it but also because I have had the most wonderful time reading all of your kind comments. :) Last chapter ended on a definitely tense note. This installment is a quick break from that, but rest assured it'll hover like a storm cloud over the following events, and be addressed again very soon...

“You can lay your clothes over there on that armchair,” Kira instructs, her back turned to us. “I’ll bring out the mat for you to pose on once I – “ as soon as she comes to face us, she narrows her eyes. “You are _not_ the models I asked the agency for.”

“Miss Corden, we have a few questions to ask you about Lars Kidman,” says Sherlock.

“Was it Matthew who let you two in?” she demands. “I swear, that boy is the worst receptionist I’ve ever hired – “

“We simply told him we were here for Kira Corden, and he assumed,” I explain. “If we could just talk about Lars Kidman for a bit – “

“ _Fine,_ fine,” she snaps, throwing up her hands. With a pointedly loud sigh Kira drops herself into her sleek leather armchair, then gestures towards her many multicolored beanbags scattered on her black-and-white tiled floor. “Why don’t you take a seat.”

Sherlock and I exchange an uncertain look before choosing our respective beanbags and settling awkwardly into them.

“So,” Kira begins. “Explain this performance to me. Why do I have two fancy-sounding Brits intruding my home to remind me of that douchebag?”

“I was contacted to investigate the new Stein posters, the ones with the corpse,” says Sherlock. “After performing some background research I found it was not irrational to conclude that Stein was the alias of your rival, Lars Kidman.”

Kira raises an eyebrow. “I _did_ suspect something like that myself. Similar imagery and themes. But I never looked into it.” She lifts a finger and points at me. “You said you were contacted to investigate. Then who is _she?_ ”

I turn briefly to Sherlock, out of some bizarre impulse to see how he would react. He actually faces _away_ from me, but not before I detect a panicked shifting of his eyes, the rise of a blush in his cheeks.

“I’m his contact in New York,” I tell Kira. “I’m helping him to navigate.”

She seems to accept this, and leans back. “Anyway. What have _I_ got to do with it?”

Sherlock looks back at her, again focused. “We visited the site of Kidman’s last exhibit as Kidman, _Modern Fossils._ The curator Nanda Johal told us that you’d attended to accuse him of plagiarism.”

Kira laughs. “Because he was guilty of it! I made the original work of taping butterflies to an electric fan as an art installation. Then I heard from the lepidopterist I was consulting that Lars had approached him too – to buy _living_ ones! At least mine were fake! And what point was _he_ gonna make with a work like that? Mine was a commentary on the control others have on trans lives. It was a personal topic for me. What was _his_ gonna be a commentary on? Gore and death? Gimme a break.”

“It might console you to know that someone seems to have plagiarized Kidman as well,” Sherlock says. “We found out he was declared missing five months ago. Whoever made these new posters is an impostor.”

“Missing?” Kira repeats. “I don’t think anyone living has ever seen him. He never, ever, showed up to any of his own shows. That sounds fishy.”

“What do you think?” I ask. “A publicity stunt?”

She snorts. “Not impossible. Kidman did all sorts of gross publicity stunts for his shock art shtick. After killing insects, he did go on to bigger animals. Who’s to say he didn’t go on to people? I wouldn’t be surprised if for this poster project, he had his friends kill him, put his face on the artwork, then carry out the installations themselves. One final disgusting attempt at infamy.”

Sherlock leans forward. “Do you know any of his friends who are capable of that?”

At that, Kira stops laughing and locks eyes with him, seeming to understand what he’s getting at. Sherlock doesn’t waver.

She takes a breath. “I did achieve _something_ from storming his exhibit in Pure Vision that day. After all the fuss, one of the attendees, one of his old friends, took me aside. Told me she empathized, that she’s grown to dislike Kidman and doesn’t want to watch him and his art grow more violent or depraved. I befriended her in that evening. She’s a good artist herself. Interesting work.”

“Are you still in contact with her?” I prompt. “What was her name?”

“Miyu Yoshimura,” answers Kira. She shakes her head. “I’m not calling her a suspect, mind you. But we did exchange contact details that night. I think she can lead you to the rest of Kidman’s friends.”

I nod. “Excellent. Thank you.”

Sherlock moves to stand up. “Yes, if you could just hand us her calling card we’ll leave you alone and be on our way – “

“Fine, fine,” Kira says as she stands up. “Though if you _really_ wanna make it up to me, I _am_ two models short for my photoshoot, which was supposed to be happening right now…”

* * *

“Is silently standing up and walking straight out of the room a favorite escape strategy of yours?” I ask Sherlock as we trudge back to my building.

He grunts and shrugs. We go back to not saying a word to each other as we walk side-by-side.

The sun is still bright above us. I don’t understand how a morning could have been so eventful and yet so slow. I don’t understand how we could have kissed like we did on my living room couch and I’m still trying to make conversation with him now, as we walk down the street in broad daylight.

We come up beside the entrance to my café. There’s a sizeable crowd of customers inside getting their lunch hour meal.

“We could use a snack,” I say to Sherlock, pointing my thumb at the café door.

He doesn’t even turn his head to look at me.

“What,” I ask. I’m starting to get frustrated with his pact of silence. “You still won’t eat? How much longer till you collapse?”

“I think I should work,” he finally speaks up. “I have to look up this Yoshimura. _And_ Kira Corden, to be sure. I wasn’t able to earlier today.” The reason why hangs in the air between us, unspoken.

He begins to turn for the steps up to my building’s entrance, but then I call out, “Wait!”

Sherlock looks back at me, slightly startled. I fumble through my jacket pocket, then pull out what I was looking for. “My keys. You can’t get in without them.”

He stares at the keys for a moment as they glint under the sun. Then, he blinks hard as my point seems to finally register in his head, and he reluctantly stretches out his palm, face up.

I see his intention: he wants me to drop the keys into his palm, rather than hand it to him, which runs the risk of us touching. It’s not really worth bringing up, but I do cast him a look before conceding.

Sherlock closes his fingers around the keys, gives me a tight nod, and turns around to run up the steps. I make for the café entrance.

When I reach the door, I catch my reflection in the dark glass. It’s a face I see every morning in my bathroom mirror but now, directly after speaking to Sherlock, it’s a jarring sight. For some strange reason, whenever I talk to him I envision my hair done up, my clothes formal and elegant, my lips deep red. That’s how I was, after all, when we first came to know each other in London. Is his presence really that strong enough, to draw me back to the past?

And what about him? When he speaks to me now, with my frizzy hair, my freckled face. I am comfortable looking this way. But I wonder if it unsettles him, makes him think I’m an entirely different person from the one who beat him, or used his name as a passcode…

My vision suddenly shifts to what’s past the glass rather than what’s reflected on it. Inside, I have a dim view of the seated customers, the shelves, and at the counter, the outline of a woman with her hair in a bun, in an overly thick coat –

The same woman from yesterday.

I shove the café door open. My senses don’t betray me: it’s that same middle-aged customer, leaning on the counter to talk to Peter, who’s saying something back. As I march closer I’m able to catch part of what he’s answering.

“…if you stick around for a while.” Then immediately he looks up to me and grins. “Oh look! Here she is now!”

No turning back now. I don’t slow down my steps towards them as the stranger very gradually straightens up, turning at the waist, her ashy-blonde hair coming to fade into her roots, the true color a rich red –

I stop, and suddenly my body won’t let me move again. It’s as if the rest of the room has gone still and blurred, so that the only thing existing, living, in high-definition is the tall and elegant woman before me.

She stares at me with the same overwhelming amount of awe. I say, breathlessly, “Kate.”

* * *

We sit together, quietly, in a corner table – of another café down the road. I don’t want anything to intrude now, or anyone to eavesdrop. Not Peter, not Sherlock.

She’s shed her disguise now, her hair let down, her glasses off. She’s even removed that ridiculous coat. Now she’s gazing into her coffee, and I study her face. There’s a hint of makeup to change the contouring of her nose and brow bones, but I see her features clearly underneath. Still the same eyes and lips. Still Kate.

“I wasn’t here to find you, you know,” she tells me in that same deep drawl I remember, as she absentmindedly stirs her spoon in her cup. “From here I was supposed to catch a train to Syracuse to meet with an associate, for a potential con job. But when I was resting at a friend’s, here in the city, I was scanning the travel guide – the name Café Margate jumped out at me. And then I knew. I just knew.”

I feel no embarrassment in how easily she’d found me. She is, after all, only one of the two souls on this earth besides me who knows of my hometown. It’s the only part of my old biography that survives.

I look at her fondly. “Should I be flattered by how much effort you put into finding me?”

Kate looks a little offended by that. “Not _that_ much. This hair color is from quite some time ago, mind you. I just pulled a costume together from my friend’s closet and came by.” But then she shakes her head. “My mindset, though. It was difficult to keep up my disguise and investigate when I was so nervous about possibly meeting you again.”

“Nervous?” I repeat. “If you were nervous, imagine the heart attack _I_ had. When I first saw you at the café, I didn’t recognize you. I thought you were here to kill me.”

She laughs. “Maybe I was.” And then she looks straight at me, her eyes sincere. “I would have spoken to you then, the first time I visited. But I suppose I got cold feet. Decided I’d use the excuse that that first visit was just to verify that you really were the owner.”

I swallow. “Was it worth it?” I ask carefully. “To see me as I am now?”

“Oh Irene,” Kate says, and it feels like home to hear her voice say my old name. “I’m ridiculously glad to see you, you silly old thing.”

Some tension leaves my body and I laugh in relief. She puts her elbows on the table and rests her chin on both her hands. “I’m a little surprised, I have to admit. You’re not still playing games with the rich and powerful, causing trouble. Why the quiet life?” She raises an eyebrow. “Have you settled down with someone?”

“Oh god, never,” I answer, leaning back in surprise. “No, I just wanted to see how good I was at business. I think it’s a good pattern for my life, anyway. Cause trouble, lay low. Rinse, repeat.” I watch her nod at that, then I smile. “What about you, then. You mentioned a con job – still living dangerously?”

“Always,” Kate grins. “I will admit, I’ve gotten a bit drunk on power. All of the resources you left me when you disappeared from London? They were a great help.”

It’s a half-joke; she says it lightly. But then I realize that she never did find out why I’d fled London. She probably thinks it’s because I’d just grown restless with cabin fever…

The weight of my memories of Islamabad, of hiding, must have shown on my face. “What _did_ you do?” Kate asks. “These last four years?”

It’s strange to hear it measured out in time and not places. “Trying things on, taking them off,” I try to say as casually as possible. “I know I should have contacted you, but I was quite intent on disappearing. Just for a while.” Not just for a while.

Kate fixes her eyes on me, with a new expression this time. Like fondness trying in vain to conceal sadness. How is it that so many years could have passed and she can still look at me this way?

“I lied,” she says. Simple words, but they inject a dose of fear into my system. Then she continues, “About how much effort I put in. I’ve been trying to find you for quite some time, in between my jobs. In fact, at one point I thought you’d returned to your parents. So I went to Margate. The real Margate.”

I find myself gripping the edge of the table. “Kate.” I’m unable to say anything more.

“I don’t know how you remember the place, so I wouldn’t know how to describe it to you,” she goes on. “But it was very pretty.”

“Why did you go looking for me?” I have to ask. “Was it worth the effort? Worth having to meet my parents and ask them if their little one’s home, playing in the backyard?”

Kate blinks. Then she stares at me, her mouth hanging slightly open, the shock plain on her face. My mouth snaps shut. Had I said something wrong?

“Irene…” she starts, and her voice has lost its smooth, calm confidence. I could almost describe it as paper-thin. “…I thought you knew.”

My eyes sting. “Knew what?”

“When I couldn’t find them in the phonebook, I resorted to church parishioner directories. I, I visited some of their websites.” Kate’s brows draw together in concern. “Irene. Your parents were listed as buried in St. John’s Cemetery. They passed away eight years ago.”

The sun outside casts a white glow onto one side of our table and our skin. It’s swallowed sharply by shadow, so that the wood, and Kate’s face, are half vanished in darkness. My hands, which are suddenly too heavy to lift from the table, are the same. Half present, half shadowed. It makes my fingers look thin and pale, almost skeletal.

Many images flash and flick by inside my head. The sea and its white foam crashing into the bay. Little boats sleepily bobbing, tied at the pier. The rows of narrow townhouses, mirrored in the forever-moving water. But not the faces of my mother and father… do I even remember what they look like? It’s not like I could forget…

“Irene,” I hear Kate’s voice say, so I look back at her. She appears as concerned as before. “I’m sorry. I thought you would have had contact with them…”

“Oh God,” I say immediately, and shake my head. “Kate, I barely knew them. After I went to school I don’t think I ever saw them again.” I draw back from the table a bit. “I’m sorry you wasted your time there.”

“I didn’t feel that way,” Kate says. “Like I told you. It was beautiful.” She tilts her head slightly as she keeps her gaze on me. “Did you like it there? Growing up.”

I put out a hand to poke my finger against her cup. “You haven’t touched your coffee.”

* * *

“I decided not to dabble in any of the trendier industries,” Kate tells me as we walk slowly back to my building. “Illegal drugs. Precious minerals. Art. It’s surprisingly rewarding, actually, in pharmaceuticals. Selling other corporation’s secret recipes to the highest bidder. You’d be surprised by how much blood is shed over formulas with anti-aging properties.”

“None of them just want to settle for preaching healthy eating?” I snort. “To think I thought you would have gone back to your legal firm. Naughty girl.”

“Birds of a feather,” Kate smirks.

We reach the steps that lead up to my door, and I come to face her. “Well, as much as I’d love to take all the credit for making you so mischievous, I’m quite sure you had that in you all along.”

“I feel the need to thank you, regardless,” says Kate, and there’s an astonishingly open sincerity in her voice. “We had an awfully good time together.”

I grin at her. She looks up at my building, its few stories stretching up into the still-bright sky. “Which floor is yours?”

“Third floor,” I reply immediately, though with a weight sinking uneasily inside me. Does she expect me to invite her up? …Does she _want_ me to… How can I, when Sherlock is stashed away up there, when the thought of having her again stay in the same room as me brings so many vivid memories of London bubbling to the surface…

She doesn’t ask to be invited up. Instead she casts her eyes back down to the pavement, before coming gently to meet mine.

“You should invest in colored contacts,” I say, my throat dry. “Anyone would recognize green eyes like that immediately.”

Kate smiles. “Like you did?”

She stands a few inches taller than me, but the action isn’t very difficult. I stand slightly on my tiptoes, bracing my palms on her shoulders just as she wraps her hands behind my neck to tilt my face to hers.

We kiss slowly in the middle of the sidewalk. It’s simple and chaste, our lips moving together softly and parting only occasionally for air. She’s as warm and lovely as I remember. As I’ll always remember.

When we break away, there’s no pain in Kate’s eyes. She’s still smiling.

“See you soon,” she says, already pulling apart from me. “Stay out of trouble.”

“Stay _in_ trouble,” I tell her.

She casts me a final charming little grin before turning around to walk off. As she disappears around the block, it occurs to me that in the hour we spent together, we didn’t share very much of our new lives at all. It also occurs to me that, despite that, seeing her again was still enough.

I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly rather cold after being held for so long. An absurdly thick coat would be useful by now.


	7. Special Effects

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! Sorry for the slight delay. Again, sending out love to all those who commented, bookmarked or gave kudos. I am having so much fun learning from you guys!
> 
> Partial reason for why this update is late: would you believe I wrote this chapter over a month before the Christmas special? So when the episode came, and it revealed certain things about what happened once Sherlock's plane landed, I was feeling rather lazy and put off tweaking my callback to fit. Sooo I sort of had to rush-edit a couple of lines of dialogue, hehe. Nonetheless, enjoy!

The sun floods abundantly into Miyu Yoshimura’s Tribeca studio, its blanket of light on the marble floor interrupted only by the shadows of her hanging orchids. Kira tends to one with a watering can as she speaks to us.

“What Kira said is true,” she says in a clear voice. “I was beginning to dislike Lars then. I’m no longer friends with him now. In fact, I’ve lost contact.”

I see Sherlock’s jaw work in disappointment. “So you wouldn’t know why he’s gone missing.”

Miyu shakes her head as she walks over to another orchid. “No. But I can help you find his other friends, and give you information about Stein.”

“So you agree with us then,” I say. “You also think Lars and Stein are the same.”

“Yes,” she says, nodding. “I was no longer speaking to him by the time of Stein’s debut, but I’m sure of it. The artistic choices are very him.” She gestures with her elbow towards a small table with more watering cans. “If you don’t mind…”

I move to take a narrow silver one with both my hands (it’s surprisingly heavy with water), though Sherlock stands in his place. “What do you mean, ‘very him’?”

She takes one hand off her watering can, mid-sprinkle over a cattleya, to dig through the pocket of her jeans for her phone. She taps through it for a moment before lifting the screen into our view: it’s a shot of the Stein poster.

“Lars has some German lineage, so he’s fond of using the language in his work,” she explains. “There’s the name Stein itself – German for ‘stone’. He probably believed the truths he’d proclaim in his works to be unmovable, indestructible. Then there’s the politician’s name on the poster: Tod Truman. Tod is German for ‘death’, which is just to refer to the corpse and the mortality theme. Tie that in with the obvious meaning of ‘Truman’, well…”

“But we’re operating with the theory that the campaign posters are by an impostor, not Kidman,” I say as I awkwardly tip my heavy watering can over one of her orchids. “Someone that was close to him.”

“That, I can’t comment on. A friend could have easily copied his style, yes, but he could have just as easily made it himself.”

“What about the corpse in the poster,” says Sherlock, taking hold of Miyu’s phone and turning the screen back to face her. “Past the blood and gore. Do you recognize them?”

She squints at the image. “You said you believe it to be Lars himself.”

“Yes,” says Sherlock. “From what you can see behind the damage, do you think it looks like him?”

Miyu sighs. “Same brown hair. In fact, the size and shape of the head _does_ suggest Lars. But it could have easily been a wax cast, or even, as much as Lars disliked it, special effects…”

“You don’t think he would’ve killed himself to make this artwork possible?” I ask, giving up on carrying the watering can and setting it back down.

“Lars may have loved his shock art, but he loved himself more,” says Miyu. “These installations are getting incredible publicity – why would he have wanted to be dead before seeing any of it happen?”

“That potentially brings us back to our theory,” Sherlock says eagerly. “What if someone murdered Kidman for this to happen? Swung an axe at his skull, then took a photograph?”

Miyu raises her eyebrows. “I see you like your shock art, too.”

Sherlock shuts his mouth tightly, drawing back as if he’d been struck. I actually feel a twinge of embarrassment for him.

“Miss Yoshimura,” I say, so that she turns her attention on me. “We understand you want nothing more to do with Lars. If you could just help us find the last few people who knew him, before he went missing, maybe it will help you leave him behind for good.”

She gazes at me for a moment, then sighs as she nods. “Yes. I want to help you both. Those people you mentioned from the Pure Vision show, I have all their addresses. Henry, Vivienne, Georgina, Semi-Colon… But I must warn you – “ Miyu’s brows draw together, “ – It’ll be a little hard to get substantial information from them.”

* * *

“Aw, man, sorry guys,” says contortionist Henry Carper. “I lost contact with Lars after his last show under that name. I mean, I was only his internet friend anyway. I went to all those shows trying to meet him, but I never got to.”

“Wait,” I say. “Internet friend? Does that mean you don’t even know what he looks like?”

“Nope,” he answers. “But hey, I think this’ll help: when we had this one chat, he told me he was thinking of buying a bunch of tools to do the slaughtering himself, so that it’s more to his vision. Before that, y’see, he bought animal cadavers off scientists, taxidermists. I shot him down about that, okay? But yeah, he was definitely on the road to somewhere ugly.”

“Tools for slaughtering,” repeats Sherlock, sounding excited. “You mean like an axe?”

“Yeah, probably! He even sent me the website of this one lumberjack guy he found who deals with that kinda stuff. Liked building log cabins or something. Are wood axes and killing axes even the same thing?”

* * *

Vivienne Wills faces away from us, passionately dabbing her brush at a canvas on her easel, the image still a vague, early sketch. “Lars was a monster, just as all artists are monsters.”

 “Yes, fine, but did you decide that while you were still in contact with him in the last two years?” asks Sherlock.

“I decided it the moment I was born, into this world of pollution,” she answers. She dips at the waist to dispose of her brush and grab another one off the floor.

“Okay, but what about Kidman specifically made you think he was a monster?” I step in. “Besides his, uh, being an artist.”

“He abandons people quickly – “ she slashes at her canvas “ – like he abandoned me, and Henry, and Miyu, and his lover Georgina. I think he doesn’t care for life, unless he can take it away.”

“So he and Georgina Domingo were dating at the time of his disappearance?” Sherlock asks.

“No one has anyone, when they disappear,” Vivienne explains. “We are all smoke and ashes, here to only pollute the world further.”

“Alright, so, it’s possible he, or Georgina, had emotional motive then,” I conclude. “That’s, erm, a lovely painting. What is it of?”

 “It’s a fruit basket.”

* * *

“Hey!” a middle-aged, balding man greets us at the door, bouncing a sleeping toddler in one arm. “Parents of?”

“Parents? I – _no_ ,” Sherlock shakes his head hard. “Are _you_ Semi-Colon?”

“Gosh! No one’s called me that since my art circle days!” he laughs good-naturedly, then tilts his head at us. “Soooo, you’re _not_ here for Denise’s seventh.”

“Eh, no, but we do have some questions to ask you about your ‘art circle days’,” I reply. “Is there anything you could tell us about your old friend Lars Kidman? Are you aware he disappeared five months ago?”

“Wait – seriously? I had no idea! Five months ago – that was Jake here’s graduation from nursery. I was busy as a workhorse!”

Sherlock sighs impatiently. “Fine. Then could you tell us anything about his girlfriend, Georgina Domingo? We have her contact details and address.”

“Oh, well, I haven’t spoken to her in a while either,” Semi-Colon shakes his head. “But uh, not sure how good that address is at this time of year. She spends non-vacation months up in the fancy part of Pound Ridge, north of here. Working as a housekeeper for rich folks’ getaway homes. You’re most likely gonna find her staying there.”

“That’s… actually quite useful,” I say. “Thank you.”

“Thank _you_ for the blast from the past! You guys are pretty cool. You sure you don’t wanna stay for the birthday party? Denise would be thrilled to have two British people over! She _loves_ Harry Potter.”

* * *

The sun is finally setting outside my bedroom window. Good riddance.

I sit on the edge of my bed, listening to the rumble of cars as they roll by on the road outside. I feel too heavy to rise and go to my window for the view. Too heavy to think, even, about the day that’s passed.

It’s then when I hear his voice again, speaking to me through our makeshift channel in my ruined wall, “Irene.”

“Initiating conversation now, are you,” I say, deadpan. “I was starting to believe you’d reserved that honor exclusively for me.”

I hear him sigh. “Irene, there’s something I have to ask of you.”

My hands are folded on my lap, over the rumple of my dressing gown. I only clasp them tighter together. “Alright, what?”

“The trip to Pound Ridge tomorrow,” he says. “It’s in Westchester County, about a two-hour car ride from here. Known for being a sort of weekend getaway for wealthy nature lovers. I have to just ask for use of your mobile to hail an Uber. I can take care of lodging.”

“Really?” I ask. “Where did you have in mind?”

“Mycroft is friends with a New York state official,” he explains. “Who has a vacation home in that area, like the one Semi-Colon mentioned. Mycroft’s visited it for his own use once or twice. I believe I can gain access into it.”

I must admit I’m impressed. “How luxurious.”

“How _necessary_ ,” Sherlock insists. “We need a safe, isolated place. No motel on the outskirts, which is dangerous. No camping in the car, which is disgusting.”

“Luckily your brother seems to have saved the day,” I can’t help but tease.

He sighs again. “Yes, thank god for family.”

Ah. Family. Not something I’m familiar with.

“…Well,” Sherlock speaks up again, though awkwardly. “That would be all. Feel free to go to bed – “

“About what happened,” I cut in. “This morning.”

He’s quiet for a heartbeat. Then, “It didn’t happen.”

“Sherlock – “

“It. Didn’t. Happen,” he repeats, hard and hostile. “I am sure you agree that most if not all of the value of today was gained from our visits to several of Lars Kidman’s associates, and so those memories are the ones I’ll keep note of. Everything else was inconsequential.”

“It wasn’t inconsequential to me!” I answer back just as stubbornly. But I stay faced away from our shared wall. “And if you’re so concerned about consequence or value or whatever, why bother doing anything or interacting with anyone outside of your work?”

A pained pause. Then he says, with some struggle, “Some things are out of my control.”

“Oh, not what happened this morning,” I snarl. “ _That_ – was very much in your control.”

He’s quiet for a long time. Despite my fury, I worry, suddenly, that he’s switched to autopilot for the remainder of my scolding of him. I imagine that my sharp words will enter his ears but they dissolve before his mind can even care to comprehend them. God, is this what he does when Mycroft Holmes reprimands him? John Watson?

“I’m not saying all of this because I want to send you packing,” I begin again after a while, calmer but still firm. “I just want to figure out why it happened.”

He seems to switch back to a state of awareness, considering this for a few seconds. “...My guess is as good as yours.”

There’s dull pain as I realize that he’s right.

“Despite that…” I hear him say, and then he pauses to search for words. “…You said that it wasn’t inconsequential to you. And so, I suppose, I owe you an apology.”

Relief swells within me. And then something like sheer terror follows. Sherlock Holmes, apologizing? “Apology accepted,” I say as firmly as I can. “But I have my regrets as well. Our argument shouldn’t have escalated the way it did.”

“That was my fault too,” he answers. “Another apology I should issue.”

“You’re not entirely at fault for everything. I cooperated.”

“You did, somewhat…” he agrees in a stilted, awkward voice… “I did find it discomforting, how you still tried to speak to me after that. I would have understood if you ignored me, believe me. But then…” He seems to struggle with choosing his words. “Then you stopped trying, after your lunch hour… you seemed uneasy.”

I’m quiet. I know exactly what happened at that time, what had made me that way…

“What happened?” he asks.

I can’t possibly tell him I met Kate again, after years of separation…

“I was… doing research for the café. I dug back into Margate, the real Margate, and I came across the burial records of a cemetery near my home… it turns out my parents passed away eight years ago.”

The expected stretch of silence. If he learned this social cue from his Baker Street friends, or if he is genuinely at a loss for words, I’ll never know.

His voice finally returns. “My condolences. Do you have any other family, then, to talk to about this?”

It’s so obviously a stock answer, and I’m so baffled by the idea of _talking_ to other _family_ , that I actually burst into laughter, doubling over as I sit on my bed.

For his own part, Sherlock stays quiet; I’m fairly sure he’s more confused than ever, and has no prepared remark for a reaction like mine.

When my sides begin to ache, I fall on my side onto my mattress, catching my breath. “I’m sorry,” I gasp. “Am I supposed to do that before or after I send the flowers?”

“Fine, fine, never mind,” he snaps. “That was stupid.”

“No! No, it’s not,” I say, still trying to calm down. “It was… oddly sweet of you. To try and be polite about it.”

“Me? _Sweet?”_ he chokes, as if I’d just insulted him.

I roll off my side and onto my back, grinning at my ceiling. “Sweeter than you had to be. I’m not sure I’m as devastated as I should be in a situation like this.”

Sherlock pauses again before speaking. “You weren’t close to them.”

“Not even that. I barely knew my mother and father, Sherlock,” I answer. “If I mourn anything, it’s that I can’t even remember what I liked about them.”

“That is… not uncommon,” he says. “I’ve had a handful of cases where the children of the victim barely shed a tear over the loss. Even vice versa – I’ve seen a share of parents who were utterly nonchalant upon hearing their offspring had been murdered. I just supposed that it’s… difficult to imagine for myself.”

“What, really?” I tease, the smile on my face only spreading wider. “Sherlock Holmes treasures his family?”

He grunts in annoyance. “Rather, they treasure _me_. Almost a little too much.”

I raise my eyebrows at that. “Is that serious? The last time I saw you and Mycroft in the same room together, he seemed just about ready to throw you into his fireplace.”

“That’s only when I get in the way of his work,” Sherlock says, sounding frustrated. “You don’t understand.”

The sinking feeling is back again. “You’re right. I don’t.”

He doesn’t reply. Again, neither of us speaks for a long time. A car on the road outside zooms by, the glow of its headlights making an arched journey across my ceiling, like a passing wave.

“The reason why,” I hear him start up again softly. “The reason why I took that photo with Pat for her Instagram. I told you it was so Mycroft wouldn’t think I was in New York for drugs.”

I take my hands off my bed sheet and rest them on my collarbones, faintly feeling my heartbeat through my dressing gown. “Go on.”

“Shortly after John and Mary’s wedding, I took on the Magnussen case. I needed some sort of scandal to catch his attention, so I visited a drug den.”

“Oh, Sherlock.”

“I barely took anything,” he says immediately, defensive. “Hardly even a fraction of the amounts I would experiment with in university. It was just for blackmail material. But Mycroft was convinced he had to come to my rescue anyway.”

I can nearly picture the twist of disgust in his lips as he speaks the last sentence. But even then… I can’t find myself able to believe that he’d “barely” taken anything. I may not know much about his drug habit and just how far it goes. But a person like him, extraordinary in every aspect of his life…

“Moriarty’s false return, after that. It took me an overdose, but I figured it out quickly enough.”

Oh, Sherlock.

“I discovered that he laid out the entire plan in an underground last-will-and-testament he’d written up, to be carried out by hired hands in the event of my return to London.” He says this so casually, like it’s another one of his hundreds of mysteries. “After that was settled, I was free to go back to my old life, taking on other cases.”

“Well, he can’t possibly think you’d escape all the way to America just for cocaine.”

“That’s not the end of the story,” Sherlock says.

For some reason, I feel my blood run cold.

“Minimal damage was dealt, and all my friends stayed alive. Still, it put me back in a rather troubled state.”

“Sherlock…”

“I went back to the drug den.” There’s a different weight in his voice, like he is sitting and had just slumped lower. “But – for god’s sake – all I did was stand outside, and – and _look_ at the building. I didn’t… I didn’t _want_ to go in and do anything. I stood there until I could completely assure myself that there wasn’t a single shred of me that wanted to go back. That I didn’t need it anymore, no matter how desperate I might feel. I must have stood outside on that lot for two, three hours. But I never went in. Ever.”

My hands resting on my chest curl into fists, clutching at my dressing gown.

“I was _about to leave._ I swear I was. But then – then it turned out that Mycroft had tracked me down, and in rushes his five-car convoy.” He laughs, bitterly. “As if you need an entire taskforce to hold down a drug addict.

 “Obviously, once they tested me, I was completely clean. Didn’t stop him from alerting the Watsons where I’d been. They figured I couldn’t live alone in Baker Street in my ‘state’, whatever the fuck my ‘state’ is, so they quite effectively dropped everything to move in with me, no matter how much I insisted that I was perfectly fine.”

I remember suddenly the Skype call he’d had with the Watsons. His landlady’s twittering, an infant’s cry. I remember the Skype call he’d rejected.

“I’m not... I don’t resent them for caring about me,” Sherlock murmurs. “But… only weeks prior, they had all been in grave danger. Because of their connections to _me._ Because of what _I_ had brought into London with my activity… John has come close to getting killed far more often than the others. He owes me nothing. And yet... here he is. Putting himself in more danger than he needs to, even when he now has a child to raise.”

I keep my eyes fixed on my ceiling. Its smooth, pale paint has dissolved into multicolored noise in the darkness.

“Mycroft, he…” Sherlock takes a breath before going on, “Somehow, he’s able to keep an eye on me, and yet, save for a gunshot wound or two, no news has ever reached my parents. Because… both he and I know that if they were ever to find out that their youngest had gone back to drugs, it would break their hearts.”

He speaks that last part in an odd way – as if he were repeating a speech rattled off to him time and time again by no other than his older brother.

“But, Sherlock, you _hadn’t_ gone back to drugs that very last time. You said so yourself.”

“Hearing from their eldest that he found me standing outside my old drug den, pale and incoherent? I’m as good as overdosed to them,” he snarls.

The poison in his voice is overwhelming. I swallow, my eyes darting from one corner of my ceiling to another, as if the right response could be written somewhere on the wallpaper of my room.

“So, you feel as if,” I try. “All your life, you’ve been striving to live ‘right’… only because others depend on you for it. Even worse, because some others _require_ you to.”

“Well… yes,” he answers after a while. “…So. Now you understand what family is.”

Despite it all, my lips curve into a smile. “I understand what _Sherlock Holmes_ understands what family is.”

“And am I not renowned all over the world for being able to understand things best?”

I laugh again – this time it doesn’t ache or feel wrong. How does he do that?

“Does that mean you feel better?” he ventures.

“ _That_ was your aim? Oh, I could kill you.”

“I’ve no doubt you have the ability to do so, but it’s still quite impossible when you’re in another room entirely.” A pause. “I may have worked on a case like that.”

“I don’t have to be in another room entirely – do remember that I have a key to yours, dear.”

“…Then in that case, I’m at your mercy.”

His mention of a word I’d first used on him, so long ago in his flat in London, knocks the wind out of me – I’m _sure_ it was intentional. My mouth literally drops open. I feel like I’ve fallen against my bed even if I’d never risen.

Does he remember that day fondly? Wistfully? With contempt?

It _is_ true. I do hold a key to the guest room he’s staying in. With that in mind, it feels absolutely ridiculous that we carry on talking through a hole in my wall, one that in fact should have been patched up by yesterday. I could just as easily rise from my bed, leave my room, take the three strides to his door, push it open, and…

Shut up. Shut up.

“My mercy says to let you rest for tonight,” I tell him, shoving my previous thoughts away as forcefully as I can. “We have a long travel ahead of us tomorrow.”

He pauses. Then, he speaks haltingly, like a malfunctioning machine, “…We… us?”

I furrow my brows. “Yes. You didn’t think you would be going alone, did you?”

“I… so you want to come along?”

I prop myself up on an elbow so I can stare at our channel in the wall, as if I could show my puzzled expression directly to him. “Of course I do. Do you have a problem with this?”

Sherlock is quiet again for a long moment. Then, “…I’m just surprised.”

“Good to know I still stir that kind of reaction in you,” I say with a smirk. Heaving out a sigh, I flop back onto my bed. “Good night, Sherlock.”

“…Good night.”


	8. The Ship Crashes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have always found that the show version of Sherlock enjoys waxing poetic in his speeches, no matter how clinical he tries to portray himself as. He gets to show that off here. As for Irene's dialogue, let's just say she's a little more profane than usual (I don't know why I have such a thing for Pottymouth Irene when canon does nothing to suggest it). Her language is partly why this chapter is rated M. Keyword "partly".
> 
> Thanks again for all comments and kudos! Enjoy!

I wake up, suddenly, to a snap. Or a clack or a tick. I can’t know for sure, but it was a quick, precise little sound.

My eyes fly open and I immediately pull myself up to rest on my elbows, looking around my room, already warm with new sunlight. No fallen pencils, no pigeon at my window. It could only mean…

“Sherlock?” I call out, turning my head slightly towards the hole in my wall.

No answer. Maybe he’d fallen asleep at some point last night, after hours of pacing and muttering…

But my alarm clock on my bedside drawer reads 7:08AM. He should be up by now to get ready for the trip to Pound Ridge.

I slide off my bed, tightening the tie of my dressing gown around my waist. Then I grab my extra set of keys off my desk. From my previous experience, I imagine it would be a pain to get Sherlock awake and alert, especially if he never intended to sleep.

I leave my room and take the three strides to his door. Out of courtesy, I knock. “Sherlock? Are you up?”

Utter silence. I press my ear to the door. Besides the rumbling echo within the wood, nothing comes through. Not the padding of feet or the snaps and clicks that had woken me up.

No other choice. I take my key for the guest bedroom, push it into place, and open the door.

Sherlock is in a loose grey shirt and blue pyjamas. It’s an unnerving sight, when I’m so accustomed to seeing him in his tailored suits, his great dark coat.

Even more unnerving is his carry-on luggage, open and sitting on the single-person bed, partly filled with his things.

He’s mid-fold of a crisp white shirt when I enter. His eyes meet mine, and he freezes.

“Oh,” I say. “You’re already getting packed. I thought you were still asleep.”

Sherlock swallows and pointedly looks away from me.

 “Hang on.” I look to his luggage, and the pulled-open drawers behind him. “I thought it was only an overnight trip. Why are you packing _all_ of your clothes?”

He doesn’t answer.

“…Sherlock,” I say, breathless, when the puzzle pieces of the scene before me all fall together. Those snapping sounds had come from the latches on his bag, when he’d unfastened them.  “Were you going to leave for Pound Ridge without me?”

He knows full well he can’t hide anything from me anymore. He looks away.

“ _Why?_ ”

Sherlock puts down the shirt he’s folding to run a hand through his hair, still averting his gaze. “It’s not you,” he tries, then I see him shut his eyes tightly at how inane that sounds. “No. It’s – it’s dangerous, I don’t want – “

“You know full well I can take care of myself,” I interrupt. “That’s not the reason. Why are you leaving?”

He says nothing, but I watch his lips quiver for a moment before he drags his palm over his mouth.

“Ah, is it because now that you were able to find lodging in Pound Ridge on your own, without needing _me_ for your homebase, you don’t need me around anymore?” I challenge him, advancing into the room.

“No,” he growls, but he still doesn’t make eye contact. I see his hand curl into a fist.

“Tell me why,” I command, my voice hard.

And then, without me allowing it, pain seeps through. I don’t know if it’s because of the stress from yesterday. I don’t know if it’s simply been waiting so long to emerge. “You can’t do this to me again,” I say. “You can’t leave me in a boat on the shore, with no explanation why.”

Sherlock finally looks at me. On the surface he is calm and cool. But I sense, beneath that, hurt that matches mine.

“You’re right,” he says slowly. “You don’t deserve what I’ve done to you. Any of it.” He lets that hang in the air between us for a long moment. “I will be honest. I thought that coming to take a case here would let me get back into my work, and enjoy it instead of being followed incessantly, or worse, putting someone else in danger. I thought it would put my mind at peace, if only for a few days. But… that hasn’t been achieved.” He straightens his shoulders. “Once I’ve finished packing I’m going to leave out the money for the rent on your kitchen table. We haven’t discussed the amount, but I think it will be enough.”

Oh, it _is_ enough.

“ _No_ ,” I snap. “Money alone won’t cover your rent. We agreed, the day you came here, that I would help with the case.”

My voice rises, “ _I_ matter in this transaction just as much as you. You can’t ignore that just because it inconveniences you, or – or compromises your feelings! I’m not Mycroft or your parents tracking you drug activity; I’m not Mary or John doting on you day by day – “

“ _No, you’re not,_ ” Sherlock suddenly shouts, his eyes burning. Frantically, he steps around the bed and stalks closer.

“You’re not Mycroft, or Mary. Or John! You’re _you._ And no matter how hard I try, no matter how close I think I am to figuring you out – I _can’t._ Nothing drives you away from me, and – and yet, nothing will bring you _closer._ It doesn’t feel like two people working together, does it!”

All of this tumbles out so fast, he has to pause and take a breath. “…It feels like I’m a toy and you’re a child, trying to break me.”

I feel fire rising in my throat, glinting in my eyes. “Is that what you think all our conversations have been? Me, toying with you? Am I still a dominatrix with a whip in my hand, Sherlock? Are you really so simple?” I feel tears threatening to spring free. “Do you think I told you about Karachi and Margate and my parents because I wanted to break you? As a silly little game?”

He stares at me now, with hopelessness mixed into his panicked expression. “I never know with you.”

There are many things I could do to him right now. I could banish him permanently from my flat, and from visiting me in any of my future locations. I could turn around and just exit the room, and leave him to figure out for himself what to do next. Or I could just pay his hateful face the same favor he paid my wall.

But looking at him now, shrinking from me like I’m yet another captor come to trap him just like his friends and family in London, packing his bag with no final destination in mind… I realize that he will only grow more and more lost.

So, I speak.

“You think you don’t know me?” I ask him, not breaking away from his gaze. I try to be as composed as I can, but I’m all too aware of the cracks in my surface. “You do. You know more of me than anyone else. More than I ever would have wanted you to.”

Sherlock says nothing, only swallows, his face still desperate.

“My passcode to my phone, during the Bond Air case,” I begin.

Something inside me screams to not reveal this, but I know I can never escape from it no matter where in the world I hide. “When you concluded that I’d chosen it out of ‘sentiment’, out of irrationality – you were right.”

He lets out a long, shaky breath he probably didn’t know he was even holding.

“I thought that I’d found in you an equal – someone who could see at my level and yet challenge me. Someone who could match my speed.” I laugh almost bitterly. “That’s where I was wrong. You were faster than me by the littlest bit. That’s how you figured out the code, after all.”

He stands directly before me, his hands limp and at his sides, but his eyes – intense.

“I won’t lie to you,” I go on. “For lack of a better phrase, you broke my heart that evening. Not because you’d found me out or it felt like you’d rejected me. But because of the fate you were leaving me to. I fled London that night, very much believing that I’d fallen for a monster.”

Sherlock flinches slightly. Was it because I’d called him a monster? …Because I said I’d fallen for him…?

“But in Islamabad, on the day of my execution…” I feel warmth rise to my chest, my face. “You were there. You’d come to help me. Because, you said, you wanted to. And I can only deduce for myself that you wanted me to stay alive because… because you understood who I was, and you didn’t want to lose that.”

He opens his mouth as if wanting to respond, but then closes it again.

“That, I would think, would mean that you know me,” I say, my voice soft and low. “You know that I’m alive, in a world that believes that Irene Adler is dead.” My thoughts flicker to Kate for a painful instant; she just as quickly disappears.

“The woman here now is the same woman you’d destroyed, and then saved. And known. You didn’t start again at square one when you first came into my flat here in New York. I changed my name, but there’s no reason to change my history… especially when it’s lost now. There’s no evidence of it. None.”

I close my eyes. It’s seven in the morning, and yet I feel exhausted. I feel like sleeping for days. It’s so quiet between us now, that I almost suspect that this is only a dream that I’m floating through.

In this darkness, I hear Sherlock breathing, slowly, softly.

And then, I hear him say, “You’re wrong.”

I open my eyes. His face is calm, but tired, like mine. He continues, “Your history isn’t lost. I saw it here, when I first entered your flat.”

My eyebrows draw together. “What do you mean…”

Sherlock swallows. “When I first came here, you were cleaning up a mess. A model warship, the kind that’s put inside a glass bottle.”

I didn’t realize that he had been able to identify it. “Yes…”

“Why did you have it?”

I shake my head. “It’s not what you think. I bought it from a flea market when I first arrived here in New York because I wanted my new home to look lived-in.”

“ _Exactly_ ,” he says at a new, higher volume. I almost jump back. “Rita Delmare, woman with no past, buying a piece of Irene Adler’s childhood.”

My eyes widen at that. “What on earth are you saying?”

“You told me you run away time and time again because you’re afraid. Because that is your life. But it’s not. Your life is more than that. Even here, in New York, living as a shadow, you reach and grab for things that help pull you back into the light. You named your café after your hometown to keep it as a memory. You bought a model ship, telling yourself that it would help with your running-and-hiding agenda, but it’s more than that. It’s your piece of the sea, the bay, of your old life.” His eyes, suddenly, are shining. “It’s you.”

I feel myself trembling. “What does that mean.”

“A ship in a glass bottle is commonly called an ‘impossible bottle’. Impossible, because it’s supposedly a mystery of how so grand an object fit through so tiny and fragile a pathway. That’s exactly you. You are an impossible object, inside a bottle that could never conceivably give you the space you need to realize your full potential. How could something so grand slip through the cracks and end up lost in a big, faceless city?”

He speaks so quickly as if this were a discovery that _had_ to be announced. I can’t get myself to say, or do, anything. “I knew, I knew when we first spoke three days ago and you said the café was an exercise for your business skills – you were dissatisfied. _Bored._ What more could you do, though, when you were afraid of being found? But even then, I could spot your trademarks. You kept the apartment keys to yourself and wouldn’t hand me over some control. The moment I said something insulting, that evening at the kitchen table, you stood up and made sure to remind me who held the power in this flat. And then… you insisted that you’d help with the case. You were hungry for a challenge. Only you would ever be. How could you say that Irene Adler is lost when she’s standing here before me?”

He stares at me with no small amount of wonder. “You’re a warship, and the storming sea that comes with it. Trapped in a glass bottle.”

There is most certainly a storm in me. In my chest and in my head, in the tips of my fingers. Behind my eyes, which are blinking wildly and rapidly. My heart supplies the thunder.

Countless admirers before have tried to win me over with words and flattery. But Sherlock is not an admirer. This is not flattery.

Sherlock is still staring at me, but it’s no longer an expression of wonder. It’s… different. More forward. “Irene…”

As if on reflex, I take a step forward, so that he has to lower his head slightly to keep his eyes on me.

At this distance, I can see every brief flash of emotion and thought in his face – surprise fear concern awe curiosity longing fear again – they flick by so fast, and yet I can catch them.

I speak without thinking. “You are impossible, also,” I murmur as I look his face up and down. The warmth of my breath mingles with his. “You absolutely baffle me.”

At that, his lips part to take in a shuddering gasp. The ship crashes. The glass breaks. I put my arms around his shoulders and kiss him.

With zero hesitation his hands come to my face to press me closer. There’s no pause with our mouths– his tongue eagerly comes to meet mine; the whole of his head leans forward into the kiss then back so that we rock there as we stand, at any point in danger of falling over.

I slide my hands hard down his chest, passing briefly over his galloping heartbeat, down to his abdomen. I clutch the fabric of his shirt into my fists – he’s mine, all of him. He follows my lead and presses his hands down to my waist.

I don’t even part from his mouth as I push him so that we stumble backwards towards his bed, heedless of his still-open luggage laying across it. When he comes to sit on the edge, I don’t even have to open my eyes to climb onto him, planting my knees on either side as I throw my arms around his neck again and he wraps his around my back.

We’re opening our mouths wide now, greedily lapping, biting, finding relief only in the sloppy pressure of lips against lips and teeth against skin. I rock in his lap; he grasps and pulls at the silk of my dressing gown.

When I press down particularly hard he wrenches back to gasp again, louder and more open. He comes back to push his swollen lips against my jaw.

“Irene,” he says into my skin, and I’m overcome with the suspicion that he has wanted this for so, so long.

I exhale as I tug his hair to steer his mouth back to mine, and messily suck at his bottom lip to shut him up, but even then I think vainly to myself that I want to ask him, _How long?_

How far back has he wanted this? When I first sent him my address in Australia, did he read it and think of flying over to see me, to spend the night? Would he have pulled over in the middle of the sandy Karachi road, turned to me and kissed me goodbye? Would he have let me fuck him in his armchair in 221B, had his landlady not interrupted?

Wrapped in him now, receiving his deliberate yet tentative, eager yet clumsy motions, I know well that he may not be ready for a full and intense session. And, I have to tell myself honestly, neither am I. I don’t sleep with men – haven’t since college. No matter how passionate this outburst had been, we both need time still to ease into whatever fearful new territory we’ve entered. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have _this_ …

Sherlock’s hands reach up to twist into the ends of my thick, curling hair. I pull back finally from our kiss, leaning back into his wrists so that I tilt away from his body, my shoulders drawn back but my chest pushed forward, heaving. I look at him with my eyes heavy and lips still shamelessly parted. He gapes at me so openly, just as flushed, but with the same awe as before.

My movement has caused my dressing gown to slip partway down my arms, leaving my collarbones and shoulders exposed. I wear nothing underneath. Sherlock leans in and presses his mouth again and again on my skin, wherever he can find – recording me with his teeth and tongue. He is lost in me, and I in him.

I grip the bottom of his shirt and yank it upwards; it forces his mouth and hands off me as he raises his arms to shed the garment. With one hand I toss it away behind me and with the other I map the sequence of his neck and sternum and abdomen, warmed and sheened with sweat.

I come to the waistband of his pyjamas. When I raise my face back up to meet his, our noses brush against each other; our breaths mingle. His eyes are so ready and eager, though questioning.

With that, I come in closer to brush my lips only barely against his, as I pull the band down part of the way to take a hold of his cock.

He inhales fast and his hands clutch the cover of his bed – he even pushes his face forward to meet me for a proper kiss but I draw back teasingly and put my mouth to his cheekbone. His erection is hot, and full, and I slowly run my palm and fingers, wrapped around it, down the entire length then up again.

“Have you ever felt this?” I murmur into his ear. “Have you ever done this?”

He doesn’t answer, though he turns his head to reunite his mouth with mine, his tongue pushing past my teeth again. I tighten my grip as I kiss him back.

His hand returns to my hip, grasping at the material of my gown. Then his other comes to my thigh, tracing over the inner skin, edging upward. Oh, I should have predicted he’d want to give just as much as he received…

I let myself enjoy his air-light touches at my thigh for just a moment, closing my eyes. Then I bring my free hand to his wrist, guiding it up between my legs. I pull back from his mouth to look directly into his eyes, which keep darting impatiently from my face to our hands, back and forth.

When I bring him to my cunt he lets out a short, fast exhale. My eyes fall closed; his fingers are rough and warm. I keep my grip on his wrist, holding him in place, urging him to explore. Tentatively he cups the shape of it first – presses his palm against me. Then, so slowly, he drags his hand back, running his middle and index over the slicked folds. I can’t help it – a loud sigh tumbles from my lips. He drops his forehead to press against mine.

I take a hold of his hand and bring him to my clit, pressing his fingers hard against my skin – the warmth uncurls through me and it’s a relief to be touched again, it feels so good. I teach him with my hand over his, rubbing in slippery spirals, how to touch me. He’s a good student, a fast learner…

I finally let go of him, freeing him to stroke at my flesh at his own pace and manner, so that I can concentrate again on my grip of his cock. He grunts as I pump it, his hand on my hip tightening into a fist.

I lean forward and kiss him hard again – I want to feel and devour every stutter of breath, every barely-contained whine of his that’s caused by my hand on him. But he presses deeper against me, circling quickly, and it’s making me lose my composure, too – he doesn’t know how to tease! He goes immediately to fast and strong and messy…

I moan into his mouth and if my heart were not beating in my ears I’d be able to swear that he moans back, too. To match his speed I stroke him just as feverishly; he’s deliciously heavy and hot and I even feel his lap, his hips moving in time with me.

On some impulse I grab up his free hand, the one that had been injured. There’s no bandage now, the cut in his palm was only shallow and now it’s closed, healing. I bring it to my lips and brush against the wound, lightly. He lets out a shuddering breath and pushes his hand into my thick hair.

There’s no slowing down. I rock greedily into his hand, swiveling my hips, every push forward filling my body with heat and hunger – Sherlock has dropped his head, his brows against my bare shoulder, grunting as he thrusts into my hand – his erection pulses in my hold, slickness already leaking onto my fingers –

I dig the nails of my free hand into his chest. “I’ll go with you,” I rasp, “Let me go with you.”

He gasps back with no delay, “Yes, yes, please – “

I groan at that and rake my teeth against his ear, and then finally he cries out as he comes with one last graceless thrust; I feel it spill over my hand and his own skin – with this burst of energy he digs his fingers hard against my clit just as I drive forward, and _finally_ I break – I’m blind as I pulse, full and deep and forceful, as my thighs quake and trap his hand between them. The spasms go on and on, my mouth is open but my voice doesn’t escape, and I feel wrapped in pleasure and heat and Sherlock’s hands…

He is kissing my jawline with loose, wet lips when I fall back into awareness again. My hand slips from his cock and I put my arms around his shoulders as I bury my face in his neck.

When I find my voice again, I whisper to his ear, “If _that_ doesn’t convince you to let me come along to Pound Ridge, I don’t know what will.”

He stops his panting to laugh raggedly, and I close my eyes to the sound.


	9. Present

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Breather ep! And by that I mean nothing overly stressful happens in this chapter. I feel like I at least owe some of you guys that. Hehe!
> 
> Rated M again!

It takes a while for me to track down an Uber driver willing to make the two-hour journey, but I eventually catch one. His name is Mac and he is a surprisingly jolly fellow.

Sherlock and I put on the guise of a wealthy couple in a long-term relationship, visiting Pound Ridge for the first time to consider it as a potential wedding venue. The New York government official’s house, we explain, is a family friend’s (partly true). As we smile and nod to Mac’s small talk, I actually feel far more awkward holding Sherlock’s hand and pictorially resting my head on his shoulder than I did earlier that morning grinding in his lap.

At one point along the long, quiet road between New York and the forested town of Pound Ridge I ask Mac to let us stop at some convenience store to get some supplies. Once he’s parked Sherlock climbs out so fast he practically trips out of the car, probably ecstatic to not have to play the part of Happily Domestic Fiancé anymore.

“Thank God, something relatively urban,” he sighs in relief as we step through the automatic doors of the small grocery. “But, why are we here?”

“ _You_ might be able to power through half a week sustained only by your passion for crime solving,” I tell him as I grab a shopping basket off from the stack. “But _I_ still need to eat. I doubt there’ll be any food at the getaway home for us, seeing as we’re uninvited guests.” He follows me as I walk over to the fruits station and pluck an apple from it. “Who knows. I just might get you something, also. The I-don’t-eat thing is impressive for the first 24 hours but after that it’s kind of weird.”

“Efficiency is not ‘weird’,” Sherlock grumbles, but he comes along with me anyway as I scan the aisles for bread, meat, drinks.

We wind up at one of the small tables at the front of the store, where customers can eat the premade and packaged foods available. He stares while I slice the apple in half with a plastic knife.

“I don’t need that,” he insists very seriously.

“Just have a slice or two,” I say. “It’s, what, eighty percent water? Surely you need sufficient hydration to concentrate on solving your case?”

“I don’t need anything to concentrate but my own mind,” he scoffs. “Any claims made about the benefits of food such as fruits or chocolate or what-have-you for one’s mental faculties are overblown and hardly contribute any real – “

Huh. It turns out it’s quite easy to shove food into his mouth since it’s open so often.

* * *

I lead him next through the home and gardening aisles, past the shovels and latex gloves, to the pharmacy in the corner of the store, and of course he complains all the way.

“Why are we _still_ here?” he asks as he digs his hands into his coat pockets like a sulking child.

“Oh, I just want us to be prepared for anything and everything,” I reply, taking some bandages, betadine, and other things off the shelves. “Help me with this, won’t you?”

Sherlock only scowls harder. “I hardly think anything earth-shattering could happen today, especially when people like you and I are the ones handling thi – “ When he finally looks down at the pack of condoms I’d pushed into his hands, his mouth immediately snaps shut.

I raise an eyebrow. “What was that you said, about ‘earth-shattering’?”

His cheeks only grow redder, and I think about how much I am going to enjoy this trip.

* * *

It’s a grand, old house right at the edge of Blue Heron Lake, a vast yet quiet body of water.

“Most of the homes in Pound Ridge aren’t newly built,” Mac explains to me and Sherlock as our car drives up the road to the home, lined with plenty of trees. Even as they whip by, I catch glimpses of the glittering lake behind them. “A lot of them are historical or passed down within families, then renovated or remodeled.”

The New York government official had, evidently, decided _not_ to renovate. It’s an ancient, dusty two-story thing, but not without its beauty. It sits on the end of a pointed stretch of land, so that it towers over the water. Vines crawl and curl over the Colonial Revival architecture: the red brick walls, the narrow white windows. The front door is framed by two towering greek columns.

And, at the back, even from the car I can see it: a wide, open-air balcony, stretching out to and overlooking the infinite lake.

We settle the bill with Mac and when he pulls away and disappears into the tree-covered path, I turn to Sherlock. “Well, show your work. How do we get in?”

His eyes dart left and right, as if reading an invisible book. “The driver said most homes here are ancestral. This one obviously is. Adding the fact that its owner clearly rarely ever visits, I doubt it has a very sophisticated security system.” He looks up to the main entrance of the house, slowly removing his coat. “If we could just find the keys they leave for the housekeeper…”

It takes us about five minutes of crawling around, digging at the surrounding pots and bushes, before he locates it with a cry of triumph – the ring of keys was beneath a grimy-looking garden gnome.

“Excellent work,” I tell him. “But now we’re all muddy.”

Sherlock frowns at the dirt patches on his trousers and my knees, and the smudges on our forearms. “I brought extra clothes.”

“What will you do with them, wipe your face? Oh come on, let’s go find the bathroom.”

The furniture inside is mostly wooden, very classic. Ornate crown molding lines the ceilings of the living room, the dining room, even the kitchen.

“Clearly a love nest,” Sherlock mutters at one point as we stroll through a sitting room. When I turn to him curiously, he continues, “The owner, politician James Moore, is married and has three children. But there are no family photographs, no swimming toys, laid out anywhere. Not to mention the fact that two of the rooms we’ve passed through have had liquor stations out in the open. I’m willing to guess the key we found in the garden wasn’t just for the housekeeper, but for any one of his mistresses who come to visit. No wonder he hasn’t invested in security for this place – the CCTV would be all his wife needs to incriminate him.”

The spiral staircase leads up to two guest rooms and a master bedroom with its own loo. At the edge of this master bedroom is that grand, white-railed balcony, opening up to a backdrop of shimmering blue water. So _this_ is where the state’s money goes.

“I see why Mycroft’s friends with _this_ American politician in particular,” I say as I drop my bag on the floor beside the king-size bed, looking around the room.

“A ‘friend of Mycroft’s’ is a term one uses very loosely,” Sherlock calls out to me from the bathroom. I hear the spray of the shower turn on.

“Mmm, I see,” I reply as I make my way to the bathroom door, shedding my dress.

“He has an impressive reach for someone who quite literally never leaves England,” he goes on. “You could say that I’m the reverse – I’ve touched down in countless countries, but I know barely any _what are you doing._ ”

Sherlock stares at me in bewilderment, halfway through soaking his hair, as I climb into the shower stall with him, just as nude as he is. “Hell if I’m going to wait for you to finish,” I say, scrubbing at the dried mud on my knees. “I feel filthy.”

He glowers at me for another moment before turning back around in a huff, going back to his own business. For a few minutes we wash in a rather forced and awkward silence, and I decide against initiating a conversation in favor of appearing very absorbed with scouring the soil off my skin.

I soon easily give in to the temptation of watching his body, the muscles in his arms and back, work as he washes himself. He’s grown wiry and toned from his two years of running, of spying and fighting, and yet so thin. How many times, between now and his Fall so long ago, has he had to truly rest?

“I know you don’t like to sleep when you’re on a case,” I say to him when he shuts off the shower tap, and we both exit the stall. “But when you do – is it light? Deep? Do you dream?”

He seems a little thrown off by the question; admittedly it’s quite out of the blue. But then after a moment of thinking he answers me, “Deep. Rarely any dreams. If there are, they’re not so vivid. Just fragments of images from the previous day.”

I nod. Someone who uses his brain all day long is probably too tired to leave it working once he hits the bed. I pull the towel off the rack and press my face into it.

“What about you, then?” Sherlock asks as I toss the towel around his shoulders. “Dreams? No dreams?”

“Always dreams,” I answer, very absentmindedly moving the towel against his skin, not doing much to dry it at all. “They’re mostly memories, like yours. But from farther back in the past. The halls of my school, the view out my old home.”

“Do you enjoy them?” he asks. He takes the ends of the towel from my hands and pulls the cloth off himself, probably having realized that I wasn’t doing much of a job. He’s bent his neck a little lower, so that the tip of his nose can brush just barely against mine. Droplets of water slide from his hair and land on my cheeks, my shoulders.

“Oh, no, not really,” I whisper as I tilt my head farther back. “I enjoy the present far, far more.”

He acknowledges that answer with a hum and brings his face closer to kiss my mouth open. My arms encircle his waist and he folds his hands across my back.

We’re like this for a long, long time, standing dripping-wet in the bathroom, kissing silently while our bodies barely touch. The air around us is cold but his lips and arms are warm. I find the feel of him irresistible. I wonder if he thinks the same about me, too, what with his hands roaming up and down my back, from my shoulder blades to the curve of my arse.

When I draw back, he’s staring at me so hungrily that my heart starts to beat, hard.

“Are we on a tight schedule today?” I ask as I take his hand and lead him out, back to the bedroom. “Do we have to meet Domingo by a certain time, go somewhere?”

“I do have a certain time planned,” Sherlock replies. He stops at the doorframe and leans his back against it. My hand is still in his so I have to stop as well. “But it’s in the afternoon, to match with her schedule. We still have all morning.”

I grin a little slyly as I turn around to face him. “All morning for what?”

He doesn’t seem to register the humor in my voice; instead his eyes are fixed very firmly on my lips. “I don’t know… whatever you like.”

I’m looking at his body again, now that I have a full view – his lean torso, his strong legs. The shape and bulk of his arms. I imagine the journey my mouth could take across it – the hills and the dips…

Even as I close the distance between us, I fancy he must have done the same – study my body, with all its curves and stretches, and think of all the possibilities this morning would allow him. Well, time stops for no one…

I press my mouth against his chest; I feel him sigh. Then I move to his nipple, darting my tongue out to it, and his hands fly to my hair. He’s still soaked from our shower and so am I.

I go lower and lower with my mouth until I’m on my knees, kissing at his thighs while his trembling fingers reach for my shoulders.

“What do _you_ like,” I say to him through heavy eyelids, lowered lashes. I come to kiss the tip of his cock, already erect, and he shudders out a breath. I brace my hands on his thighs and give a single lick up the length of him, from the base to the head.

Sherlock lets out a shuddering whine, fully grabbing my shoulders. “Bed,” he says hoarsely.

I smile at that, rising to meet his eyes again. Immediately he surges forward to push his mouth to mine, and we stagger towards the grand bed together.

The pillows at the head of the bed are considerably stacked and fluffed, so I’m able to sit up against them, leaning back as Sherlock crawls up over me, dark-eyed. Once he’s near enough I slide my hands over his wet shoulders and bring him in for another kiss, one that’s messy and sweetly earnest.

It’s when he pulls back that I see the look on his face – his eyes travel down my body, clearly aroused and ready… I press my palms to his chest. “Shall I show you where to begin?” I ask. His eyes glance back up to me.

I take his hands and press them to my breasts, and immediately he molds to them as he exhales. I let go of him and lie back, gooseflesh rising on my skin as he roams. Sooner than I thought, he lowers his head and closes his mouth over my nipple, even letting his teeth graze at it… I let out a gasp at that.

He seems entranced, still groping at my slippery skin as he sucks me, shivering a little himself. I raise my knees and clamp them against either side of his torso. “Smart boy…” I tease him.

I ease him away finally, then take his hand to slide it down my stomach, to my cunt, slick with arousal. I drag his fingers over me, sighing. “There… that means I’m ready.”

He can’t keep his eyes off where he’s touching me; his mouth hangs slightly open as he stares. “Ready…” he repeats lowly, then trails off. I almost begin to explain, but then he bends down his head and runs his tongue over my clit. I let out a shaky breath.

He slips his hands under my arse as he settles between my legs, licking and mouthing at me slowly and yet with no pause, and I melt into the pillows. I curl my fingers into his damp, gorgeous hair and bring him in closer. He’s unbelievably sexy this way, discovering something new and giving it his all…

For a long time I enjoy the view of his back muscles rolling, of the shape of his own arse, before I have to close my eyes from the tingling heat. I feel lost in a world that’s only skin and feeling, his hands and tongue and breath on my body – it’s almost like he can’t get enough of me. The thought of that makes me give out a loud and shameless moan.

He responds to that with a low hum, and the vibration teases me between my legs. I smile and gently comb my fingers through his hair, even as my toes curl into the sheets. Oh, I can’t wait to teach him beyond the basics.

It takes all my power to tilt my head back up and look at him again – the sight is stunning; his eyes closed, his brows creased, his muscles tensed, and I trail down to see that he’s taken a grip of his own cock, and my head tips back as I fall over the edge – I come in hot, pulsing waves that bloom from where his mouth is wrapped over me – to my thighs that close against his head, twitching and jerking from the force of it…

I find him kissing my stomach and thighs, and I draw him back up to me. He looks divine this way – debauched, spellbound, just a little bit spent. I can’t help but kiss my taste off his lovely mouth, feel him pant and sigh against me.

Even when I turn to reach for my bag beside the bed to find the pack of condoms we’d bought earlier, he stretches to press his lips over my shoulder and arm. Even as I help him fit one on, he exerts effort in making sure his fingers continue to brush with mine.

It’s then when I lift one of my legs and hook my knee over his shoulder. The motion makes him tense up, his eyes widening a little in surprise. But I soothe him with my hand easing down from his sternum to his belly. “Hush… I know you’re ready for this…”

“Ready…” he repeats like before, only now with a drier throat. My fingers on his abdomen trace lower down until I’m holding his cock, still hard and full from our foreplay. He bites his lip as I bring it closer to my cunt, let him graze my wet skin.

From the corner of my sight I see his hands on either side of me, clutching fistfuls of the bed sheet, though I keep my eyes on his face, so focused yet so keen, a droplet sliding down his temple – water from our shower? Sweat? It makes me tighten my grip on him and he thrusts towards me, his lips now parted and his breaths harsh. I am ready, and I want this to happen… so I dig my nails into his shoulder, and slowly guide him inside me inch by inch.

He fills me and I can’t help but gasp – at the same time he gives a hard grunt. There’s so much heat from where we’re joined, and his weight presses down on me and my leg over his shoulder…

Then, planting his hands more steadily on the bed, he moves. It drives him deeper inside me, and I watch his eyes squeeze shut and his lips form a silent Oh. I feel myself pulsing around him, pulling, demanding, so I wrap my arm tighter around his back.

“How does it feel?” I urge him. “Tell me how it feels.”

“It feels, good,” he gasps in segments.

He moves against me once more, and then again and again, slowly and deeply. There’s no hurry. Every thrust forward fills me with a warm and wonderful weight; every roll back leaves me clutching at him for more. All the while I look at him, with his eyes closed and jaw tensed.

What took us so long to become this way? My stubbornness or his? I wonder this as I ghost my fingertips over his shoulder blades, the back of his neck. Was it bound to happen? Or did we deliberately forge our path to it…

With a grunt of effort he lifts his hand off the sheet, takes my other leg and hikes it over his shoulder too. I inhale sharply in surprise – now the pressure of his torso and my thighs shifts the angle of him inside me, and pushes heavier against my clit, and for a moment we’re at a pause again, panting as we adjust.

He begins to thrust again, a little faster, and the new position lets me look closely into his face. I feel every huff of his hot breath, some edging faintly into whimpers… I want to watch him unravel. Snug as he feels inside me, I clench my muscles tighter around him still, partly to see and feel him tremble, partly out of my own greed for him…

He lowers his head again to kiss my neck, and I tip my chin back to grant him space. The way his lips press at my skin, wandering from plane to plane but never once leaving – it’s as if he molds a replica of my body within his mind. I groan at the thought – he gives an answering whine.

I grope for his hand on the bed and grab it tightly. Then I guide it between us, letting his fingers drag over the part of my flesh longing for even more stimulation. He understands immediately, gets to rubbing slick circles over me in time with the rocking of his hips. The rhythm of heavy pleasure rolling into me runs double-time. I let myself go, laying the backs of my hands against the pillows beside my head and giving him free rein…

There’s delicious force against my neck, my chest and thighs, my cunt – I feel absolutely spoiled with attention. Sherlock covers me entirely, sliding over my skin with his, equally slippery – how are we still so soaked, our shower was ages ago – if I could keep him this way, tensed and flushed, laid completely bare, I would. “Come here,” I whine, and he stretches up to kiss me carelessly. I push my tongue into his mouth, match my rhythm with his.

Every second after that feels more and more desperate. I let the rasp of my voice seep into my sighs, growing faster. He grunts into my mouth with each rocky drive forward; he’s dispensed with mildness and rubs the heel of his palm hard against my clit. It sends _jolts_ up into me. My toes curl from the tightening sensation – my fingers twitch and jerk, searching for an anchor to grab onto, and I reach up to latch them into his hair and keep him close to me. Oh, God, let me _let go—_

Just another rough push forward by both his hips and his hand and I’m undone – something inside me breaks and spills to every part of me, tensing my calves, my arms, my neck as I tip my head far back, engulfing me in heat, and yet Sherlock doesn’t stop, keeps pounding into me and rubbing my flesh as he blindly chases his own climax, and God, even when I’m already lost in my pulses of pleasure I feel it ­ _all._

Then finally he halts; his shout cut-off halfway – I feel his back arching from his shoulders pressing against my legs – I force my eyes open to watch his face, his own eyes fallen shut, his lips parted…

When he slumps down against me, heavy with exhaustion, I slide my legs down around him and rest them back on the bed. I embrace him with my arms instead, letting my lips brush against his hair as I pant in time with him.

He cooperates when I move him gently off and to my side. He lies on his shoulder so that he faces me, though his eyes are still closed, his chest still heaving. The sunlight, and our bed, are warm. If I were any more comfortable I might even fall asleep here, at his side.

When we’re both breathing less hard I smooth my hand over his arm, over the drying sweat, the tired muscles. “Was that alright for you?”

He opens one eye. “I’m quite sure that I communicated effectively enough that it was, certainly, ‘alright’ for me.”

I smile at that. “Just wanted to check. It was your first time, after all, and you might’ve been a bit shaken.”

As flushed as he already is, Sherlock’s cheeks manage to redden, and he even diverts his gaze from me. I move my hand to his cheek. “Nothing to be ashamed of. There’s no grand accomplishment in finally having sex, nor for never having it. I’m just rather pleased you chose to do this with me.”

He looks to me again, now with an honestly questioning expression. After a pause, he says, “Who else could there have been?”

It doesn’t matter that I feel so spent – my heart starts thudding at that, painfully enough that it might have sent me into a panic attack had I not stretched up to meet his face and kissed him soundly.

* * *

Sometime past noon we roll out of bed and fumble for our clothes strewn over the hardwood floor to prepare for our meeting with Domingo.

“Any reason for why you’re grinning so widely?” I ask him as I zip my dress back up. “Or did you really enjoy just that much?”

“Hmm?” he turns to me as he buttons up his shirt. “Oh – it’s nothing. I’m just… rather proud with myself for having figured something out yesterday.”

I roll my eyes as I pluck his suit jacket from off a chair and walk over to him. “Aren’t you always.” I place my hand on his shoulder to turn him away from me, to help him into the jacket. “So, what groundbreaking discovery have you made this time?”

His smirk only grows wider. “Oh, you’ll learn soon enough.”

Well. He may no longer be a virgin, but he’ll always be a prick.

When we’re going down the stairs, I suddenly say, “Hold on. Why didn’t you bring your coat and scarf?”

He doesn’t stop walking, only quickens his stride towards the main entrance. “Don’t need it.”

“Don’t need it? We don’t have a car anymore, in case you forgot. We’re going to have to walk next to a giant lake – it _will_ be rather cool.”

“We’re not walking anywhere,” Sherlock replies, abruptly stopping right before the great wooden double-door. He checks his watch.

“What on earth do you _mean_ we’re not walking anywhere?” I ask in disbelief, ending up beside him. “How are we meeting with Domingo? Don’t tell me she _knows_ we’re here on someone else’s property – “

As I say it, I hear a car rolling over the gravelly driveway outside. When I peer out through the glass window beside the front door, I see it: an old blue Hyundai pulling up in front of the house.

“ – oh god. You bastard. You brilliant bastard.” I stare at him in wonder. “You didn’t choose the state official’s house just because he’s Mycroft’s friend.”

There’s his proud little grin again. “I looked into Domingo’s agency’s website last night. It advertised that their clientele covers part of Lewisboro and nearly all of Pound Ridge, including Blue Heron Lake properties. I was quite sure she’d make her daily checkup here right around now.”

“You kept that from me to impress me with it just now, didn’t you.”

Now he looks to me, still awfully pleased. “Of course you’d say something like that.”

I hear a car door open and the clack of a shoe as the driver gets out. “Sherlock – we took the housekeeper’s keys. How will she get in?”

“We give a proper welcome then,” he says, stepping forward to pull open the door before I can stop him.

New light floods in, and with it the sight of a young woman with olive skin and long, straight black hair pulled back into a ponytail. She’s in jeans, a pink blouse, a wool cardigan, and yellow latex gloves, and when she finally notices the door’s opened she’s halfway down the path – mid-stride, wide-eyed.

Sherlock simply grins and says, “Georgina, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”


	10. For the Sake of Art

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you missed it, I uploaded the previous chapter (Irene and Sherlock first arriving at Pound Ridge) 3 days ago!
> 
> Also - sorry for the delay with this update! My computer had some problems over the weekend and I was busy despairing over the possibility over having to rewrite chapters 10-15 again! The good news: all my files were safe, and my computer is still alive and kicking! The bad news: I'll need at least a week of silence to polish the last 5 chapters for publishing. I think that's okay, as this update wraps up a big plot point. Hope it'll make up partly for the wait. Enjoy!!

“What are you doing in Mr. Moore’s house?” Georgina demands.

“He’s a friend of the family,” says Sherlock, waving a hand. “Why don’t you come in.”

Georgina stands her ground. “I wasn’t informed anyone was staying here this week.”

Sherlock shrugs. “Maybe he forgot to tell you. Not to worry! We’ll send him a text, also let your agency know everything’s fine.” He stretches out a hand. “I should probably introduce myself – “

“I know who you are,” Georgina says flatly. “You’re Sherlock Holmes.”

He promptly drops his hand. “Thank god, we can get past that grueling part of the conversation then. Would you like to step in?”

I watch her bring out her mobile, pulling off one latex glove so she can tap on it. “I’m calling the police.”

Sherlock decides to be a complete nitwit and brings out his own phone, already tapping. “Not if I call your agency first and complain how you’re so rudely interrupting our holiday – the customer is always right, is he not?”

Georgina narrows her eyes. “As if you really would.”

Oh god. It’s like I’m babysitting toddlers. Quickly I step in front of Sherlock. “Miss Domingo, I know it’s a bit of a shock to have intruders in your first house of the day, but the reason we’re really here is – “

“It’s Mrs. Langdon now, thank you,” she interrupts. “And this is my second house of the day, just so you know how much trouble you’re causing me. Save your explanations for when the cops arrive.”

“No, but – what?” Then I see it: the little silver wedding band on her finger. “Ah, you’re married? Since when?”

She pauses her tapping to throw us a humorless smile. “Since three months ago. Sorry I didn’t send an invitation.”

“So two months after Lars Kidman was declared missing?” Sherlock says.

She looks to him, icy. “Is _that_ what you tracked me down for? To interrogate me about my ex-boyfriend, whom I haven’t seen in _two years_?”

I put my hand up. “Mrs. Langdon, wait.” When she turns to me, I clear my throat and straighten my back – put on the most Irene Adler bearing I can manage. “You’re the housekeeper for this home, James Moore’s, yes? Then I’m sure you know full well he makes use of it as a getaway for him and his many mistresses. Of course you would, when you’re left to tidy up the place after any one of his weekends spent here. What do you suspect he would think upon hearing from the local police of some kind of trouble happening on this property of his, which he keeps so secluded? You seize two strangers, holding the very keys he leaves for his lovers. What do you think that sounds like?”

I raise an eyebrow. “Worse yet, what do you think that sounds like to his wife, family? The press? Not a very good headline for a New York politician, is it?” When Georgina’s finger over her mobile wavers just the smallest bit, I lower my hand. “Imagine the damage a furious Moore could do to your housekeeping agency, to you specifically. If you just let us ask you some questions about Lars Kidman, for just a few minutes, then we’ll both leave immediately after. You won’t have to say this ever happened.”

Georgina glowers at the both of us for ten full seconds. I stand completely still, and so does Sherlock, his thumb still hovering over his screen.

And then, she sighs, tucking her removed glove under her arm. “I’m only doing this because it’s less trouble for _me._ ”

I nod and step aside to let her in, though inwardly I’m brimming with satisfaction. Sherlock makes sure to shoot me an impressed smirk before we follow Georgina into the house.

“Don’t know what on earth I could tell you that you don’t already know,” Georgina drawls, walking into the kitchen. She takes the glove from under her arm and places it on the tabletop. “Like I said, I broke up with him two years ago. Never spoke with him again after that.”

“Really,” says Sherlock. “And you met Mr. Langdon afterwards?”

Georgina looks at him with hostility. “I knew Stewart since even before I broke up with Lars. Though we only got together after that.” She rolls her eyes. “Are we talking about my personal life now?”

“Why did you break up with him?” I prompt.

I don’t expect the sudden shift in her expression, which turns pale, almost troubled. “…His art was growing more and more depraved. It used to be just, just paintings of gore. But then he moved on to real insects, mice, animals – I couldn’t handle it anymore. I knew it’d only get worse. Whether it was just for the fame or really for the sake of art, I don’t care.”

“Mice? Animals?” Sherlock repeats. “So he _is_ Stein, and you stayed with him even after he switched personas.”

Georgina swallows. She reaches behind her for one of the chairs at the kitchen table, and twists it around to sit down. “Well. Secret’s out. Yes, he was Stein, and yes, I stuck with him. For a while.”

Sherlock nods. “But your friends Miyu, Henry, Vivienne, and Semi-Colon didn’t.”

“I see you spoke to them already. Yes, they began to leave, one by one, when Lars started staging more violent exhibits. Miyu first,” Her eyes search the floor. “They tried to convince me to abandon him too, but I was pretty stubborn.”

“What made you stay?” I ask.

She wilts a little, her fear melting to something more like sadness. “At first, it was because I had faith in his work. That he was making a really important statement, regardless of the collateral damage. But to be honest, after that… it was because he was familiar to me. He was the only thing that was. I guess I’m afraid of new situations.”

Without me allowing it, something deep and dull inside of me aches. Why don’t I know what she means?

“Mrs. Langdon,” Sherlock cuts in. “Are you aware that Kidman has been listed on the NYPD website’s Missing Persons page for five months?”

She swallows again. “No. But I’m sure you gathered that he was a total recluse. It’s possible he’s just fled to another part of the country.”

“Then who put up the posters?” he asks, eyes shining. “They say they’re identical to _his_ style and theme. What artist would release an anonymous work and let all the credit go to Stein?”

Her face hardens. “Or perhaps he staged his own disappearance and hired someone to file the missing persons report. It could’ve been to further his past self from Stein, and enshroud that persona in even more mystery.” She narrows her eyes. “You like that, don’t you Mr. Holmes? Layers and layers of mystery?”

It’s as if I’m the one to flinch for him from such a blow, but when I look at Sherlock, he remains cool and passive – only a minor flex of his fingers around his mobile. “Spoken like a true artist. Are you one yourself?”

Georgina withdraws a little, and is quiet for a few seconds. Then, “I tried for a time. Drew, painted. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy art, looking at it, I mean that’s partly why I was attracted to Lars, but… my day job got in the way. I couldn’t devote myself a hundred percent.” She shrugged a little sadly. “Maybe that’s why I stuck with Lars for so long. He lived the life I wanted for myself.”

That dull pain in me again. But for some reason, this time it feels different, more direct…

I swallow it back. Then I say to Georgina, “Would you know of any other reason why Lars would go missing? Would you know of any friends, any enemies who would cause that…?”

She shifts in her seat. “You talked to Miyu, yes? She was the first to leave Lars and try to encourage us to do the same. Wouldn’t she be your main suspect?”

I shake my head. “We did talk to her. She hasn’t seen Kidman in years. Besides, when we spoke to her I could sense she was innocent.”

Suddenly Georgina glares at me. “Oh, you _sensed_ it, did you? Who are you, anyway? I thought Sherlock Holmes’ assistant was a man.”

I take a solid, threatening step forward. She visibly retracts. “First of all, my name is Irene Adler. And second of all, I am _not_ his _assistant._ ”

Georgina is stunned silent for a long moment, and then I realize, so is Sherlock.

It hits me – I’d used my real name and not my alias. _Oh God._ How could I have been so careless…?

In a bout of panic I find myself mute, but then Sherlock takes his own step forward, tapping on his mobile. “Let’s try one more entry point. Let’s talk about the art itself, shall we?”

He lifts the screen to Georgina’s view, and though I can’t see it myself I know it’s a shot of the campaign poster.

She only grows paler still, and tightens the line of her mouth as she looks.

Sherlock calmly instructs, “Tell me what you see.”

Her eyes dart to him for a second, then to me, then back to the mobile. She takes a breath. “I see a politician with his head split open. I see the words TOD TRUMAN and THE ONE RIGHT WAY.”

“And what would you, an artist, say that means?”

Georgina licks her lips. “Art critics say it’s a commentary on the insignificance of our politics, and how death is the true leader of society – “

“That’s what _art critics_ say,” Sherlock interrupts sharply. “I want to know what _you,_ Georgina Langdon, think.”

Her gaze reverts to him, but this time it’s hard and hostile – he’s testing her patience. But she gathers herself again – tilts her head slightly, studying the poster… “…I don’t know if the image of a dead politician is a statement in itself. To me, actually, it’s wish fulfillment, a fantasy… it’s what many people want to do to our politicians’ faces whenever we see them, or their campaigns.” She looks back to him. “There, does that analysis satisfy you?”

Sherlock shrugs, not bringing down the mobile. “Not really. I don’t care for art.”

Through all of this I’m silent, recovering from shock, but it’s then when my eyes fall back on the yellow latex glove she’s wearing, and the one she’s put on the table. Elbow-length, with textured palms and fingers for abrasion. Bright, clean, smooth…

“Your gloves,” I say.

Sherlock turns his head to me, raising an eyebrow. Georgina looks confused. “What about them.”

“They’re new.”

She only rolls her eyes. “I’m a housekeeper. Of course I’d buy new supplies frequently.”

“Yes, but you said this was your second house today. Surely you’d have gotten them dirtied or even creased by now from your first, but they’re spotless. Brand new. I doubt you decided to bring a new pair along for each house you were going to visit.” I lift my finger to point at them. “In fact, that’s quite a special pair of cleaning gloves you’re sporting. Heavy duty, textured on the palms, cuffs tight at the forearms rather than flaring out. Not the kind you’d wear to tidy up a house that you thought had no visitors this weekend. The kind of gloves that are also fit for – “ I furrow my brows. “ – garden work.”

Georgina goes pale. Sherlock, head still turned to me, seems to be lost in his own mind for a matter of seconds… and then grins rather widely.

For my own part I’m breathless. “…You’re not here for the inside of the house. You’re here for the front yard.” The image of it flashes briefly in my mind – muddy, unkempt…

Georgina says nothing. But her eyes begin to dart wildly; her lips are trembling.

Sherlock doesn’t move. He’s still holding up the mobile. “Mrs. Langdon,” he says in a mock-dramatic voice. “Is there a _body_ in Mr. Moore’s yard that you were planning on checking on?”

A sharp cut of silence. Everything suddenly seems like it’s moving five times faster. All this time we were actually waiting in the crime scene we’d been looking for?

She knows for sure now she’s been caught. Georgina opens and closes her mouth several times, shaking her head. “I’m – the – don’t be ridiculous – “

“You got scared of being discovered, enough to think of covering up your tracks, moving evidence,” Sherlock says. “And I think I know what startled you.

“When I tried to introduce myself you interrupted me. You recognized my face and knew my name. Is that because, during your weekly internet search for feedback on the Tod Truman posters, you came across Pat Alvarez's Instagram profile, where she'd posted a photo of her with me, mentioning the case I was here for? That's why you turned paranoid and stopped putting up new installations. And now here you are, only two days after that, coming to see if you can do a better job of hiding the body, or even move it.”

Suddenly I remember that conversation we had that evening through our channel, Sherlock asking about Pat’s username, scrolling through timelines…

Sherlock goes on, “Your cover story for us, and for your friends, is that you broke up with Kidman two years ago. But that’s not true, is it? You _stayed_ with him for several months after that, up until this year in fact, and lied to Miyu and the others because you were ashamed.”

Georgina is sweating now, and though she doesn’t rise from her chair, she grips her knees.

“I only worked this out about twenty seconds ago, so do correct me if I got anything wrong. You were telling the truth a while ago: Kidman had filed his _own_ missing person report and purposely used that vague photograph of his profile as a publicity stunt to throw his name back into the public eye. This was so he could reenter the art scene as himself, not as Stein, with his next great work.

“But then, something happened. I’m not quite sure what that something was, I’ll give you that – some tragic thing that happens to lovers or artists or what, but you never allowed Lars Kidman to become Lars Kidman again. Because _you_ ,” he shoots at her, his eyes wide and sure. “ _You_ drove an axe into his skull, and turned his corpse into art.”

Georgina’s jaw works subtly. The only thing masking her terror, possibly, is her trembling rage.

Sherlock, ruthless, doesn’t quit his speech. “After taking enough pictures for your poster series, you had a body left to deal with. Then your thoughts turned to Mr. Moore’s house, secluded, rarely visited, with no security or CCTV…”

From the kitchen window, I can see a part of the lake. It no longer looks as if it’s shimmering, calm. I imagine Lars Kidman’s corpse deep in the soil at the shore, rotting and poisoning the water. Despite all my experience with death and death’s companions, I feel myself cringe.

Still, I cock my head, looking again at her wedding ring. Thin, silver, only three months old… something clicks.

“You said you’d known Stewart Langdon for a long time,” I add in. “He’d been courting you all those months, romancing you, so to cover up any trace of your continued relationship with Kidman, you hastily accepted his proposal and got married, just two months after Kidman’s staged disappearance – and a month after his real one.”

Sherlock smiles humorlessly. “So there you have it, the performance piece of the decade. Woman murders lover, photographs his cleaved skull, puts it on a poster that she knows takes after Stein’s style, drinks in the inevitable praise from the press. A true masterpiece.”

“ _It would've been me!_ ” Georgina shouts. She leaps to her feet and I actually take a step back in surprise. Sherlock’s smile drops, but he doesn’t shrink or look away.

She’s breathing hard, and her eyes are fire. “His next great work would've been _me –_ he was going to kill me, he bought that axe to bash into _my_ skull, and if I hadn't done anything it would've been _my_ corpse in a work of art, splashed all over Soho.”

I say nothing. Neither does Sherlock. He hasn’t moved, his hand still poised with the mobile, the screen glowing with Lars Kidman’s corpse. She wobbles backwards and puts a hand on the kitchen table for balance.

“He never told it to me, but I could tell. I could tell he was plotting to do it, in the months we were spending together – letting me move in, but speaking to me less and less and less… he was so bent on becoming famous again with his real identity, he never left his room. When I saw the axe he’d bought… I knew.”

She licks her lips again. “So one night, a month after he filed his missing person report, I sneaked into his room... he, he was at his desk. I took the axe from the corner and went up behind him – he turned around and I swung the axe at his face.

“The posters… it wasn’t about stealing his Stein persona. It-it wasn’t even about me being an artist again. It was wish fulfillment, a fantasy…” The same words she’d used in her analysis. She takes a final, shaking breath. “…I’d always wanted to do that to him. After he took my friends, my dreams, away from me.”

Sherlock finally pulls his mobile back. He taps something, and I hear a ping. “Thank you. Procedure after this should be quick and clean.”

Georgina blinks as if she’d been shaken awake, some tears that had been springing from the edges of her eyes finally falling. “What?”

He doesn’t look up from the screen. “Started a recording when you first showed up at the door, kept my mobile out all the while. Got everything mentioned – your name, the victim, the location of the body, the crime, the motive… nice job working that last one in, by the way.”

My eyes widen. “Sherlock – we have everything we need.”

He grins rather smugly. “Less than a week. I told you.”

Georgina’s voice, cold and low. “Give me that phone.”

Sherlock turns back to her, unfazed. “Sending this file to the local police would take much less effort.”

I see her grip the back of the chair she’d been sitting in. I realize what she’s about to do half a second too late.

 _“Dodge!”_ I yell. The metal chair comes flying at us – Sherlock and I both dive out of the way. But as I hit the wall I hear a clatter on the tiled floor and when I refocus, Georgina’s rising from having picked up Sherlock’s mobile. She springs for the living room, where there’s a window that leads out to the water.

“She’s going to throw it in the lake,” I cry, alarmed. We both sprint after her.

Georgina gets to that window and tries to yank its glass slide open – it won’t budge. When she looks back at us in terror, I realize with a rush of triumph that I’m still holding the house keys. With us blocking the entry to the kitchen, she’s effectively trapped.

Then, she turns and makes a break for the spiral staircase. Our victory is short-lived.

“She’s heading for the balcony,” I realize aloud. “Quick!”

Sherlock and I run up the stairs side by the side – I catch a glimpse of her boots as she disappears into the second floor. It only makes me pick up my speed, gaining past Sherlock. I follow her through the hallway and into the master bedroom.

I nearly catch up to her at the door and I throw out my hand to grab her sleeve – she yanks her arm away so hard I topple forward. I crash into her, pain blooming at my shoulder, but it only shoves her harder toward the balcony.

I keep up behind her; we run past the bathroom door and chairs and the bed, until we’re out under the sun on that grand balcony, with only the vast lake and distant trees to find past the railing.

Georgina stumbles towards the edge. “Give it back!” I yell, launching myself at her.

I land against her back and throw my hands forward to grab her forearms, clawing and reaching for Sherlock’s mobile in her gloved hand. She elbows me hard in the chest.

I grunt from the pain and fall back – but when she spins around to deliver another blow with her fist I grab her by the collar and knee her in the stomach. She cries out – and the mobile falls from her fingers.

I turn quickly to pick it up and from the corner of my sight I spot Sherlock heading towards us. It distracts me – once the mobile is in my grasp Georgina grabs me by the hair. She pulls me up hard and I gasp from the sting. She steers me so that we switch places, so she’s closer to the bedroom and my back faces the balcony.

My eyes are squeezed shut from her continued hold in my hair, but I keep my fingers tight around the device. She pushes me roughly so that I stumble backwards, until my back hits the railing and an icy surge of panic, the most intense I’ve ever felt, grips my body.

I feel her bend me backwards over the railing – I stretch my hand far past my head so she can’t reach for the mobile.

“Give it to me!” she hisses.

I don’t answer – I try to lift one of my legs so I can kick her again, but she pulls me off-balance by taking my collar, yanking me back up and yelling into my face – “Give me the phone!”

In the sliver of sight I have past her head, I see – Sherlock. His eyes hard and focused, forearm lifted, drawn back, ready to elbow Georgina in the skull…

Everything next happens all at once. I pull my arm back and toss the mobile forward past Georgina, past Sherlock, back onto the wooden floor of the bedroom. Sherlock’s elbow lands hard against Georgina’s ear and she cries out in pain. But it jerks her fists forward, shoving into my chest even as her fingers uncurl from my collar, so that I lose my footing and tip over the edge of the balcony.

I hear Sherlock’s voice, somehow already distant, calling, _“Irene!”_ But even as I claw the air at the sound, my feet kicking to find ground, I catch nothing, nothing but air, my arms wheeling through the sudden, whipping emptiness around me.


	11. Keep Hold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp! I'd planned to upload this on Valentine's Day, but I saw that everyone else had the same idea!! So... happy day-after-Valentine's :) Thank you for your patience and enjoy!

The water is cold when I hit it.

My back takes the icy impact first, then it shoots to my limbs, and when I open my mouth to gasp in shock I earn a gulp of lake water as my head is submerged.

For several seconds all I can do is struggle under the water, arms and legs wheeling, eyes squeezed shut from panic, but every effort seems to only sink me further. My ears ring in pain from the force of my fall. My dress and hair are like lead weights. For a lake so still on the surface it feels – and sounds – infinitely deep.

CALM DOWN, my mind screams, but my body won’t obey – it continues to reach and kick while my heart beats rapidly and my lungs fill faster with ice. I have to calm down – get back to the surface, find a way back to the boat – what boat? There is no boat –

Then, I jerk my legs back; they rise until they’re level with my head. My shoes are lost; my feet are bare. I throw my arms forward, and even as my lips tug back from my teeth in icy pain, I force myself to act – I push the water back as I pull my arms to my sides.

I move.

I force my eyes open – beneath me the water is black and murky and endless, but forward: it fades into faint blue, where the light pierces the surface. Shallower water. I can follow it to find the shore…

I kick back again. My hands continue to drive through the water. I repeat this, again and again, and with every lunge forward and every stab of cold the light grows closer.

Without thinking I lift my head up through the surface. As soon as my mind senses my mouth is above water my eyes suddenly pull shut again from shock and my body _forces_ me to gasp for air – I do, desperately and quickly. The oxygen, though utterly welcome, burns my mouth and throat in its rush to reach my lungs. Then I go right back under, and I keep kicking, pushing, moving through the water, until…

The tips of my feet hit a steep slant of soil. I’m knocked out of balance and my limbs become loose and uncontrolled again, until I’m able to clamber into a standing position in the shallow water, now reaching just below my waist. Suddenly I no longer have to hold my breath, close my eyes.

I look up at the shore and – Sherlock is standing there at the water’s edge just feet away from me, his coat clutched in his hand, his eyes wide in alarm. His stance and breathing suggest he’d just run all the way here, from the second floor of the house.

My legs, though weak and shaking, automatically maneuver toward him. I stumble through the last few meters of lake, my ears still ringing.

“Irene,” his voice cuts through. “Are you alright?”

I’m still panting. I look at the soil, at the water still at my feet. What did I just do…

It occurs to me, about five seconds after the fact, that Sherlock had said something to me. I finally look at his face, and it’s the same – tense, concerned. Afraid?

“I’m fine,” I’m able to reply. “I’m just cold.”

Immediately he takes his coat in both hands and swings it over me, draping my shoulders. It shields me from the cold lakeside air, but the water that’s already soaked my skin and dress clings to my body. Still, it gives me some relief.

Sherlock says nothing for a moment, his eyes flicking over me as if assessing the damage. Then, “You were able to swim.”

I blink several times before I nod. “Yes… Didn’t realize I still knew how to do that.” In fact, I can’t remember the last time I even _had_ to swim…

Suddenly I remember where I am. Pound Ridge. James Moore’s house. “Where’s Georgina?” I ask in a jolt of alarm.

“Knocked out. Still lying on the balcony,” says Sherlock. “I have my mobile back, thanks to you. Recording intact.”

I nod, closing his coat tighter around myself… “So what now?”

“We can’t stay. Secluded as this property is, other residents around Blue Heron Lake could have heard us fighting, and if not that, then definitely the splash in the lake…” he swallows. “Even then, it’s dangerous to leave Georgina Langdon alone here. Not only does she need medical attention for the blow to her head, but when she wakes up, there’s the very real possibility she’ll want to disappear so that the police can’t find her.”

I lick my lips. “Then, I think… we should take her mobile and let her earlier call to the local police go through. They’ll find her, take her in and give her a checkup. I doubt she’ll want to reveal our trespassing – we have that recording of her confession after all. But if she does… we’ll at least have bought some time.”

“Fine,” Sherlock says, but it’s flat and mechanical. Then he sighs. “It’s not my main concern right now.” Slowly, tentatively, he reaches out and takes my wrist. “I’ll call a cab. We must return to New York.”

* * *

I spend the two-hour cab ride back to New York in dry clothes and Sherlock’s coat, leaning my head against the window, but I don’t sleep. All I can do is stare absently through the glass, at the glimpses of light and scenery that whip by. Though I never look back at him, I sense it somewhat whenever Sherlock, on the opposite side of the car, steals a glance at me.

When we arrive at my building, I step out the car myself, and against my better judgment I veer automatically towards Café Margate to peek in through the window, just to see how things are. It’s late afternoon, with a decent though quiet crowd.

Sherlock puts a hand on my back and steers me away, though not before I suspect Peter looks up from the cash register and catches a glimpse of me before we disappear from each other’s view.

It occurs to me again, as we re-enter my flat, how unoccupied it actually looks. Everything is neat, almost sterile-looking, without so much as a book left open on the coffee table or a lone, emptied mug in the sink. Haven’t I been here for over a year?

“I think I’ll take a shower, wash the lake off me,” I say to Sherlock. “What about you?”

He stares at me for a long moment and I don’t know why. Then he shakes his head. “I don’t know. I think I’ll sort everything in my mind palace, get the story straight for when I inform Jessica Greene.”

I nod, but I don’t turn away just yet. For some reason Sherlock had always struck me as the type to be able to make himself appear less tired than he actually feels. I wonder how much effort it takes for him to keep his face composed, eyes calm and mouth set. For him to keep his shoulders straight and sharp, and not just slump under the weight of his own exhaustion.

I step forward; simultaneously he bends down to meet me. I press my lips to his, my hands slipping out from underneath his coat to clutch at his lapels. He doesn’t lift his arms to touch me, but he slides his tongue inside my mouth.

We kiss slowly but deeply, with only small huffs of breath to fill the quiet air around us. Because of that, every few seconds my body suddenly assumes I’m underwater again, so that my chest aches in alarm, but I try my best to push the sensation away.

When I draw away I study his face, now different: his eyelids are heavy, and there’s a shadow cast over him. His mask has fallen away: he really is as drained as he looks.

I turn away for my bedroom, though I don’t let go of his lapel until I’m too far away to keep hold.

* * *

As I stand inside the stall, taking my second shower of the day, I lift my hands into view, palms-down. I watch as droplets land on my skin, then slide between my bones, down the lengths of my fingers, dripping off from my nails.

I don’t think much about water. It’s there when I need it, and when I don’t I keep my distance from it. Yet when Georgina Langdon had bent me backwards over the balcony railing, I’d never struggled more. Not when I was held captive in Karachi, not when the CIA invaded my home in Belgravia.

And yet… when I was swimming through the lake, chasing the light to lead me to shore… I’d never felt so certain in my life.

_Find a way back to the boat…_

The water from the shower jet runs hot, almost scalding, and yet I don’t move for a very long time.

* * *

When I come back out to my living room, wearing my silk pyjamas, Sherlock is sitting on the coffee table in front of my couch, dabbing some kind of ointment on the old axe wound on his left hand.

“What happened to you?” I ask, walking closer.

He looks up at me, like he didn’t notice I’d come in. “When Georgina Langdon threw that chair at us, the seat of it scraped my hand. Whatever the case, my wound’s grown rather irritated.”

“Anything serious?” I say, concerned, as I take a seat on the couch to face him.

“No, it’s superficial,” he replies. “I just have to bandage it again to prevent further infection. You were right – the visit to the drugstore _was_ of use.”

Then he directs his focus to me. “You? Any serious injuries?”

I swing my legs up onto the couch and lie down. “No. I’m just tired.”

Sherlock nods at that, then the whole of him hesitates. I wonder, as I rest my head onto the cushion, if he’s thinking of leaning in to kiss me again. But then he pulls back and reaches for a roll of gauze bandage, going back to his work.

It’s barely evening. Warm copper sunlight still filters in through my window, draping over my flat, him, me.

I watch him wind the white bandage slowly around his hand, covering up his wound again. As I sink against the cushions I wonder briefly if he’d learned first aid from Doctor Watson, or if he had to learn it himself while on the run, like me.

He winds and winds and winds and winds…


	12. 5:47PM UTC-5:00

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to thank everyone for the 1000+ hits! What a pretty sight :) And of course thank you as well for all the comments and kudos.
> 
> Short chapter ahead, but as compensation the next update will be quite long and very heavy!

Irene has been asleep for four minutes, forty-eight seconds when I’m finished binding my hand.

I put my things back in my bag beside me and zip it closed, but I don’t feel like standing up and packing it away. I sit there and think.

On my phone I begin to write a text message to Jessica Greene, detailing our discoveries over the last few days and how we came to conclude that Georgina Langdon was the killer. There are still some scuffs on the case from when it had been dropped and tossed multiple times in Pound Ridge.

I stop typing halfway, when that feeling of satisfaction I expect to have at the end of any case does not come. Then I check briefly on the next flights for London that depart over the next several hours (two I could take tonight, one very early tomorrow morning), but it doesn’t give me any contentment.

I put my phone down so I can survey my surroundings. The sun is setting and its light pours in through the flat at a sharp, acute angle, though it doesn’t hit Irene’s eyes. She is well into Stage Three of sleep, quicker than typical, signifies severe exhaustion. Her somewhat still-rapid respiration implies some tension but there is no hint of REM under her eyelids, which seem relaxed, and still. Her eyelashes do not flutter.

I consider a sight pleasing to look at when it produces a puzzle for me to solve, or holds the answer to my current question.

The way I look at Irene now. What is she to me, then? A puzzle? An answer?

It’s due to her influence that I suppose I will never look at certain things in a wholly objective way again. Camera phones. Fashion accessories such as high heels or red lipstick. The bay in Islamabad. The boring, identical streets and blocks of New York City. Sex.

When I first entered her Soho flat four days ago I had expected Irene Adler to treat me with a distant coolness, though with a willingness to help that recalled our previous collaborations. I did not expect… this.

My phone vibrates with an incoming call. I know who it is immediately.

I stand up and walk to the guest bedroom so that the conversation doesn’t wake up Irene.

After I lock the door behind me, I accept the call and bring the phone to my ear. “Mycroft.”

“I was waiting for you to call,” he says. “To gloat over your success.”

“Here I am now. It’s done. The case is solved.”

“You took a day and a half longer than I’d calculated. Got distracted, did you?”

“No. You just overestimate me.”

“My, my. Sherlock Holmes, admitting incompetence?”

“Rather: Mycroft Holmes, demonstrating how bad he is at gambling.”

He sighs. “So. Who was the murderer this time?”

“His lover. Got her confession all on a recording. Typical, no?”

“If it was so typical, what took you so long?”

That irritates me. “I’m back to doing my old work with the same enthusiasm and proficiency. Do you want me to do it in record time as well?”

“No – what I want you to do is keep in touch with your family and friends when they ask you to. It’s one thing that you didn’t allow Doctor Watson to come with you. It’s another that you rejected his last call, as I was told. Did you not agree to make at least one video call to 221B per day, while you’re away?”

I don’t reply. “Sherlock?” he says.

“I explained to him via message. I was busy at that moment.”

“I looked into the matter and it appears that you haven’t signed back into your Skype since then.”

“Oh, God. It’s been, what, 32 hours. Do you really expect me to solve a case and pop online for a nice chat every tea time, sing Willa to sleep – “

“We don’t pester you like this because we love to interrupt your oh-so-carefully curated life, Sherlock,” he interrupts me. “We do it because, believe or not, we are worried about you.”

“I am _fine_. If that doesn’t get through to you after having watched me go through rehab – _again_ – that’s your own shortcoming, not mine.”

“Then prove it,” he replies. “Send me the recording. Prove to me you’ve spent these last four days doing substantial detective work and not sniffing around alleyways for dealers I haven’t paid off yet… or doing anything else that could have been distracting.”

I don’t say anything for a moment. “Is a confirmation from my client not enough.”

“I don’t know your client. I know _you._ And don’t just tell me to look into her background myself. This isn’t a test of my resources. It’s a test of how well you can comply with the barest minimum of trustworthiness I ask of you.”

“…And if I don’t send you anything?”

“Then the moment you touch ground back in London, I will not hesitate to send you back to the clinic. No drug tests performed.”

“Why are you being so difficult?”

“Just returning the favor.”

I almost pull the phone from my ear to toss it across the room. I stop myself, but I say nothing for a long time.

“Sherlock…” Mycroft begins. “You act as if what you are doing is merely inconveniencing us – me and the Watsons.”

“Just inconveniencing you?” I ask. “I should try harder.”

Mycroft doesn’t answer but some time; I assume he’s chewing his lip or drumming his fingers in frustration.

Then, “You didn’t let me finish.” He takes a breath. “Did it ever occur to you that the actual result is that you are hurting our feelings?”

I swallow. “It has.”

He says at a lower volume, “…Good. There’s nothing more I need to convince you of.”

“No.”

“Send the recording. Message John Watson,” he orders, though not angrily. “And…” Here he makes a long pause. “Hurry home.”

“Mm.” It’s not a ‘yes’.

He hangs up before I can.


	13. Waves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update! Work's been killer :'( But proofreading and polishing this in my pockets of free time has been the ultimate stress relief!
> 
> Recommended music companion for the next three chapters: Naughty Boy's "Runnin" feat. Beyonce and Arrow Benjamin. Not only is it a beautiful song with lyrics very appropriate for this fic (as I like to think, hehe!), it's a song that accompanied me on more than one sad night. And as a bonus, its lovely music video is set in the sea. :)

The water is cold when I hit it.

No matter how hard, how fast, I swim, the water around me doesn’t move; the end where the light pierces the shore doesn’t grow any closer.

The waves, white and sharp, stretch high up to hide the land from my sight, but whenever it crashes back down, I see a different thing waiting for me at the shore. James Moore’s mansion, then – rows of tiny, narrow houses, then – a boat, sailing farther and farther away –

Georgina’s eyes, trained on me in a cold glare. “Who are you, anyway?”

My name is Irene Adler.

My name is Irene Adler.

My name is Irene –

I surge awake, a shred of my voice already spilling past my lips – had I been talking in my sleep? The sun has disappeared from my window and my flat is dim and murky, almost like miles and miles of sea – It only kicks my system into a greater panic and I feel myself gasping for oxygen, even as I lay still on my couch.

The sound of rapid footsteps brings me back to dry land. I get up on my elbows and look to my side: it’s Sherlock, just come from my hallway, looking at me in alarm. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

“My name,” I rasp, “I said my name, it was caught in the recording with Langdon.”

Then, out of nowhere, I give a tired laugh.

“Do you know how long it’s been? Since I last introduced myself like that? Four years. I think.”

But when I swing my legs down to the floor to sit up, and I look up at Sherlock, it’s clear from his stance and how pale he is that his state of shock is not from what I’d just announced. No, he knew that already. I spot his mobile in his hand. “You called someone? The police?”

He swallows subtly. “Mycroft.”

He doesn’t say the name with disdain or annoyance – a red light. “And?”

Sherlock turns slightly away from me for a moment, then back, though his eyes shift, search for words. “He wants me to send proof that I’d worked on a case…”

He can’t seem to continue. It strikes me then, that in the handful of days I have known Sherlock Holmes, he is surprisingly so often speechless. At least, when I’m with him. But this isn’t a perplexed kind of speechless. In fact, his face reminds me of this morning, when I had caught him packing to leave while I was supposedly asleep.

Some heavy weight in my chest sinks and sinks as I finish his thought for him. “…You’d mentioned the recording beforehand, so that’s what he wants, isn’t it.”

Sherlock doesn’t speak, but I already know the answer. “…Well. What did he threaten you with?”

“He’ll put me back in rehab as soon as I come home.”

I feel like I’ve been drained of air when I hear that. From the look of him, Sherlock has been, too. He left for a case in New York to escape his smothering situation in Baker Street with Mycroft and the Watsons, no doubt. But then, I think suddenly, he was possibly also escaping a fear greater than that: the monotony and claustrophobia in a clinic, the isolation of a white, sterile bedroom not unlike a prison cell. How many times in his life has he been confined to tiny spaces like that…?

“We can edit the file,” I try. “We can cut out the parts where I speak, or replace them with your voice – “

“He’ll know,” Sherlock says, low and pained. “He’s expecting an audio file made on a mobile, sent directly to his own device. Any evidence of it being exported or tampered with would be obvious.”

He loses me halfway through: suddenly I forget his stake in the situation as I rapidly descend into a state of dread, of horror –

Mycroft will know I’m alive. His government lackeys, through whom the recording will pass, will know I’m alive. They’ll know I’m in New York, and they’ll know Sherlock knows…

“He’ll either come and find me,” I say, hoarse. “Or release my location to my enemies.”

My near-empty flat, once dark and still, suddenly shrinks in. The ceiling sinks downward, and the walls drag nearer, like killers closing in on me…

It’s Sherlock who makes them disappear by speaking. “I won’t send it.”

My eyes go from unfocused to fixed very sharply on him. “What?”

His expression is grave and still so tired, but firm. “I won’t send the file. It’s fine.”

I blink hard. “You’ll be sent back to rehab.”

He wavers the tiniest bit. “I’m used to it. It’s fine.”

“It’s not,” I snap, standing up. “Mycroft will only grow suspicious over why you refuse to hand it over. He could easily confiscate your mobile after banishing you to the clinic and extract the recording from there.”

“Not if I destroy it first.” His grip on his phone tightens at that. “He’ll write it off as one of my usual tantrums. It’s fine.”

“ _Stop! Saying! It’s! Fine!_ ” I explode. Whatever string had held his face together loosens, and he stares at me in alarm. I stamp closer to him to look directly, furiously, into his eyes, where he can’t avoid me. “You can’t get through this one by scoffing at other people’s suggestions. This isn’t a case, Detective – it’s both our lives!”

“ _Lives_ ,” he repeats irritably. “I’m looking at potentially six more months in a white box – you’re looking down the barrel of the gun of everyone who’s ever gone searching for you.”

“Not just the white box, Sherlock,” I snarl at him. “If Mycroft so much as deduces that it’s me you’re keeping secret from him, he’ll know you have information on me – what measures do you think he’ll take to get that?”

“Oh for God’s sake, he wouldn’t torture his own brother!”

“But he’d send him to Eastern Europe on a confirmed suicide mission?”

Sherlock flinches like he’d been slapped. I don’t feel regret over what I said – it’s the truth. No, I only feel rage, at him for submitting so easily like a man who no longer cares to fight for his freedom, at myself for being so violently jealous of it, at, at _us_ , for getting ourselves into this mess, into danger, into each other…

“Send the file,” I say as plainly as I can. “I’ll take the train to another state and catch a plane from there, find the longest, farthest flight possible.”

“You’ll disappear completely,” he says, suddenly breathless.

I sigh. “I have to.”

“You’ll make yourself impossible to find,” he continues. “Impossible for _me_ to find.”

I’m growing so frustrated with him again. “Don’t you understand! It’s so people who want my location can’t beat or stab it out of you!”

“I’ll evade them all,” Sherlock says, his voice growing rough. “And even if they tried, they’d never get me to confess.”

“How can you be so sure!” I shake my head hard. “Why are you being so unreasonable? Why are you choosing the path that only makes things worse you?”

“Why are _you?_ ” he shoots back.

It was as if someone had flipped a power switch off; we both fall suddenly into a tense silence, staring at each other like everything had gone dark and we were both searching frantically for another person present in the room. He is there, definitely, and he sees me just as clearly.

I have to swallow a lump in my throat. “I am… used to moving. You know that. It won’t be devastating for me to pack up and leave New York.” I look past him then, at my half-empty shelves, my bare walls. “I may even relish it.”

“If you leave,” says Sherlock. “God knows where you’ll go.”

I shrug. “That’s the point.”

“I don’t understand.” He shakes his head. “Why are you giving up so easily?”

“Giving up?” I repeat, staring at him in cold disbelief. “This isn’t me giving up. This is me taking control while I still can! Mycroft Holmes might find out about me, but by then I’ll be far away where he can’t reach me. I have the advantage of time.”

“ _That’s not what I mean_ ,” Sherlock snarls, in a sudden, rumbling anger that nearly makes me jump back. His eyes meet mine, bright and solid, without fear. “Why are you giving up _on me?_ ”

I am stunned into silence. Blood drains from my face, my chest, the tips of my fingers, until I’m standing cold and frail, before him. His gaze pierces into me, but I can’t move to look away. “On… _you_ …”

“We’ve. We’ve just now realized something – something new, between the two of us,” he says haltingly. I’m so unused to seeing him speak so simply. “I’m, it’s, I’m entirely unequipped to even begin to understand it. But. I want to try. I never leave a question unanswered. Especially not a question like this.”

Some sharpness fades from his expression then. “But, just _hours_ after we’d discovered it, after we’d acted on it, you – you’re ready to disappear into another continent, and leave no trail for me to follow. I’m offering you – I’m _giving_ you a simple solution, where we can both stay put, where we’d more easily be able to see each other again, and… you hand it back to me without a second thought. I don’t understand.” His face falls, and something in me snaps in half to see it. “Let me understand.”

All of me is shaking. I can’t bring myself to speak, even as a hundred words rise up from my throat and push against my teeth. My lips are tightly clamped shut.

“That, time in Islamabad,” he starts up again, though in an aching voice, as if it was torture for him to bring this up. My heart thuds just as painfully at the mention. “I’d told you days ago, I’d done it, saved you, because I wanted to. It wasn’t in exchange for anything. Don’t… don’t make me change that now. Don’t make me hold it against you just so I can make you owe me something.”

I suddenly feel hot, angry tears inside the edges of my eyes, threatening to spill over. “…You just did.”

Sherlock swallows. “That alone should show you just how decided I am.”

“No, it shows me just how desperate you are,” I blurt, blind with anger, “Saying something you obviously don’t mean, threatening something you obviously won’t _do._ You do the most foolish things, Sherlock, and you parade them as the cleverest ideas anyone’s ever had. You just hide behind this childish arrogance. You know what? I _hate_ that about you, Sherlock, I _hate_ it.”

Suddenly he’s lurched a foot closer, and he towers darkly over me, his furious eyes shining directly into mine.

“Do you know what I hate about you, Irene Adler?” he rumbles, like a rising fire.

“I hate that you don’t bother to look at the people you’ve crushed beneath your feet. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve lured someone; you’ll just as easily tell them it was all a game. You want to leave and you want me gone so you’re pulling out all the stops – feigning detachment, planting ideas in my head about what my brother might be willing to subject me to, throwing all of the worst words at me just to cause me pain. But that’s what you’re used to, isn’t it. I never should have let myself forget that warships were made to kill.”

Some of his resolve falters, and I almost see a trace of fragility in his face, so close to mine. “So much of your current life is a lie. Was a single word you’d said to me over these past four days true?”

A part of me realizes this is my chance to cut him away from me forever, to respond with cruel indifference, to make him _happy_ to disclose my survival to his brother.

Another part of me wishes to shatter into a hundred pieces.

“I… don’t…” My voice shakes. “…I don’t want you to destroy your life for my sake.”

His veil of anger falls away, and I see just how miserable he is. “I don’t want you to destroy yours for mine.”

There is no fantastical compromise for this, I remind myself. No scenario where he runs away with me to South America, where the British Government can’t trace us. No scenario where I land in London at his side, defiantly alive before every single authority who thought I was dead.

My next words feel like fragments of glass. “You’re right. So much of my life is a lie.”

Without thinking I put my hand on his chest. “Please.” I feel him tense beneath my palm, his heart beating against his skin. “Help me change that. Reveal to Mycroft Holmes that I’m alive.”

Something inside him seems to collapse. “Irene.”

“I’ll leave New York in time, find a new hiding place quickly enough.” I’m no longer shaking. “I’ll have to run away again. But this time, I won’t be afraid. The worst will have happened, and I’ll be prepared for it.”

He grabs my hand on his chest with his. “We won’t see each other again.”

It’s his turn to be selfish about this. But I understand. Slowly I turn my palm around so I can curl my fingers between his. “We will.”

He exhales. “How do you know?”

I don’t take my gaze off his. “Once Mycroft learns I’m alive, he’ll want to find me. He’ll taunt you about how he’s sending his best agents to retrieve me. You’ll do what he expects – send me a message warning me of his arrival. The message will serve as his trail.”

Sherlock seems enthralled – he seems to have figured out the next step of my plan. “His trail… to the entirely wrong place.”

I nod. “Once he realizes he can’t depend on your slip-ups to find me, he won’t know where to turn. It will buy me plenty of time to move around.”

He shakes his head. “That doesn’t explain how we’ll meet again. Mycroft will surely bar me from traveling abroad.”

“You won’t have to.”

Sherlock stops to stare at me. His eyes are wide. “You don’t mean…”

Our hands are still entwined over his chest. “His attention will be on the obscurest of countries, farthest away from England. I’ll find a way to slip in unnoticed.”

I feel his fingers tighten on me. “It’s too dangerous.”

Despite the momentum I want to laugh. “When has ‘dangerous’ stopped you?”

 _“Why is it not stopping you now?”_ he blurts, in an openly anxious voice. It nearly shocks me more than his outbursts of anger earlier. I feel like I’ve been knocked back by a wave.

Waves, white and sharp, stretching up to hide the land from my sight.

I draw in a sharp breath from the sudden flash of image; Sherlock hears it. “What’s wrong?”

I look up at him and the words tumble from my lips before I can stop them. “Do you want to know what I dreamed about? When I fell asleep?”

His eyebrows furrow for an instant. “You said you dream in memories.”

I see the end of the water, where the light pierces the shore.

“I was eleven,” I say, though my voice feels far, far away.

Sherlock only looks at me, listening.

“I was still in Margate. My mother and father took me on a boat ride from a tourist service to see the Isle of Thanet as it looked from the bay. A cruise around the curve of the shoreline and back, in one afternoon.

“I was so excited once I got on that boat. I ran from the fore to aft a hundred times to admire the view. The decks and staterooms below. I even tried climbing up the sails. There were so many people onboard but I didn’t pay attention to any of them. I just wanted to see the water and the sky.

“There was this point where… the tour guide called everyone to the side of the boat facing the towns to point out some historical landmark. So they all went and leaned over to look. But I didn’t really care, so I went to the opposite side to keep watching the sea. I climbed partway up the railings and stretched my neck to see as far as I could. I thought I’d be able to see dolphins in the distance or even a great big wave.

“I leaned over too far. I fell over the railing and into the water. I didn’t know how to swim. I tried kicking and paddling so I could at least keep my head over the water, and I kept trying to scream for my parents, but the tour guide was still speaking on her megaphone and I just kept swallowing waves of water. I kept trying and trying until the boat was moving too far away and I couldn’t follow. There was nothing else I could do. I didn’t want to die. I was so afraid. So I held my breath and put my head under the water. It was so cold.

“I paddled and paddled until I reached this old dock with some little sailboats but no people. I was so out of breath that I just climbed onto the pier and lied down and passed out. When I woke up I could still the tour boat but it was far, far, far away, just a speck in the water. I couldn’t do anything about sit and watch for how many hours.

“My parents didn’t realize I was gone until the end of the cruise. Do you know where they looked when they found out?”

Suddenly, without me wanting it, I choke out a bitter laugh. “They searched the inside of the boat. They thought I was just hiding in one of the staterooms. They didn’t know I was miles away on an abandoned dock. Some police officers only found me late that evening and brought me home. That was one of my last memories of Margate before they sent me off to school. I didn’t go back after I finished.”

Sherlock, this whole time, has been quiet. I don’t know if it is that empty space, free of words, of sounds, that prompts me to spill over even more.

“That, that was the day I realized I didn’t need anyone but myself.”

Another empty, empty stretch, and it’s enough for me to break.

“I – don’t understand – why,” I force out the words before the tears can beat them to it, “Whenever I see you – or speak to you – or think of you – I’m not so sure of that. I don’t know why my default decision before was to take what I could and disappear, but now that you’re here I’m actually – doubting that and – I don’t know how you make it _so difficult_ – “

Sherlock puts his hands on the back of my neck and he draws me in to push his lips to mine. I grab the collar of his shirt to pull him closer. We press together closer until we’re pulling at clothes, grasping at hands and shoulders and backs, until the empty space around me becomes miles and miles of sea.


	14. The Opposite of Drowning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, awfully sorry for the sudden break. It's been hard finding time to work on this!! But don't worry, we're nearly there :) Thank you for your patience, as well as your kudos and comments!
> 
> P.S. Some M rated material ahead.
> 
> P.P.S. The incredible Alex Pernau (http://alexpernau.tumblr.com) made this stunning artwork for this fic below!! I'm honored and over the moon <3

My back is pressed up against my bedroom door, and I balance on the tips of my feet as Sherlock bends to suck hard at my neck, but whatever I’m feeling is the opposite of drowning.

“If you send the recording now, and Mycroft receives it in the next thirty minutes, we’ll both have roughly nine hours before anyone he sends reaches New York,” I gasp as I claw at his back, “Four if he already has agents stationed in the country.”

“Unlikely – that he has anyone in America – with elections nearing, the White House doesn’t want any meddling by foreign governments within the country in any amount,” he says between kisses to my throat, and I wonder briefly why he’d bother to know anything about US politics, when I realize the lack of British presence is one of the reasons why he was so eager to take a case here, before Sherlock’s hands curling around the backs of my thighs banishes such dull, dull thoughts from my mind. “But with every minute that passes where he doesn’t have the file – he probably has people standing by to fly over here to collect me – with the snap of his fingers. Eight hours.”

He tightens his grip and hikes me all the way up the wall, holding my legs apart so he can press his body between them, and my weight falls wonderfully onto his broad, hard frame. I put my hands on his face and kiss him, only letting him pull away to gasp for air.

I throw my arm behind me to grope for my doorknob; my door swings back and Sherlock carries me in, and turns so we can both fall onto my bed. I land on my back and he comes to loom over me, moving to frantically unbutton my pyjama top.

I raise my hands to still his. “Don’t send it just yet.”

He looks into my eyes for a long time, in that quiet and tired way I’ve grown to like. “I’ll send it at dawn. I estimate nine hours before he loses his patience with me. We can use the time after that to flee New York.”

“Send it in seven hours,” I tell him. “You can book a red-eye to London right after, and I’ll take a bus out of the state. Once he receives the file, we’ll both either be in the air or out of reach.”

Sherlock considers this for a few seconds, then he nods, and then doesn’t waste time to tuck his hand under my head to pull me in for a deep, warm, wet kiss. I plunge my tongue past his teeth, then back out to brush at his lips; all the while he gets back to unbuttoning my shirt.

“What do you think will happen once you land?” I ask him, as I tug his own shirt open and down his arms, as I run my palms down his bare chest and abdomen to hear him shudder.

“Besides the obvious?” he breathes, spreading the lapels of my pyjama top to the sides so he can lower himself and press his warm chest against mine, and I close my eyes to the feel of it; he mouths against my ear, “After Mycroft is finished causing a second Great Fire of London, and John Watson is finished yelling at me, I suppose… he’ll start asking me questions. Why I came for you in Karachi. Why I went to you again in New York. Why I kept all this from him.”

I raise my hand to comb my fingers into his hair – I don’t expect it, but he shivers. “You don’t believe he’ll be angry with you forever?”

His lips leave my jaw as he pauses to think – something in the sudden stillness of his body, in his need to concentrate, is somehow incredibly arousing.

“No,” he says after a few seconds. “He’s protective to a fault, I’ve always said he is. To the point that he insists on acting like my guardian. But… he is my friend, first and foremost. And I know he would understand me. I know he would understand… this.”

He sounds so sure of it, and so fond of him. I find myself jealous – but not of John Watson. Of Sherlock Holmes. Of the fact that he’s found people he can depend on. If not Mycroft Holmes, then this Mrs. Hudson and of course his two Watsons. I might have had something like that once, with Kate. Now I live a life that has no room for a confidant, and I don’t plan to change that. Still, I can’t help but wonder.

Sherlock pulls back a bit so he can look into my face. I see the faint red flush on his. “You’re thinking.”

I smile. “It’s difficult not to. So much is about to happen.”

We’re both stating such obvious things. The version of me, and the version of him, four days ago, might have been embarrassed. But I brush that away so I can stretch and kiss him again, and his lips are wet and pliant and hungry for me. I reach up and undo the clasp of his belt, to slide it out from the loops.

We undo his trousers and push them down his hips; he lets out a shaky sigh at the lessened pressure on his erection. Then I help him remove his boxers, letting my thumbs brush down against the skin, the shifting muscles in his thighs. Once he’s kicked all his clothes to the floor he dips his head to lay a trail of kisses down my chest – I gasp and arch towards his mouth.

His fingers curl into the waistband of my pyjama bottom and begin to tug it down, though to remove it completely I have to move my legs away from around his waist, and he lets out a growl of frustration. As soon as I’m just as nude he pulls me back towards him eagerly so he can plant his mouth over my breast, sucking firmly at my nipple – the pressure is warm and tight and my voice escapes in a shaky _“ah.”_

Sherlock groans in response and releases my nipple to rest his forehead against mine. “What do you think will happen?”

It takes me some seconds to come back from my haze of pleasure to realize he’s continuing our conversation from just moments ago. I put my palms on his neck, slide them down his shoulders to feel the beading sweat. “I suppose I’ll move from state to state for a week, until it seems like a good time to take a flight out of America. I’ll make a stopover first, somewhere in a direction away from Britain to throw them off. Along the line I’ll have to cut and color my hair. Perhaps put a nose on. Nothing is certain.”

He strokes his hands over my stomach and waist. “What’s certain is that we won’t see each other for a long, long time.”

“Now,” I chide him gently as I lift my ankle to brush down his calf. “There’s no reason to be sad about that. There are ways to cope.”

“Such as?” he says, and I realize he’s asking honestly and not teasingly, not having caught my meaning – my heart throbs with affection without me allowing it.

I push at his chest and he obeys; I flip us over so that I hover above him, and he props himself up on his elbows while he gazes up at me, focused and hungry.

“Those nights, when you think of me,” I whisper close against his lips; his breath is hot and hitched. I trail my fingers down the length of his sculpted arm, take his hand into mine. “When you think of the fact that we won’t see each other for a long, long time. Let me show you what to do.”

A flicker of sudden understanding and desire flashes across his eyes, and he stares only at me as I guide his hand to his cock and wrap his fingers tightly around it. He lets out a sharp huff of air, but doesn’t look away, and neither do I. Slowly I begin to urge his fingers up his own length, but he’s already started it himself, in languid, rocking motions.

“And me,” I say, barely a breath. “At night when I think of you. This is what I’ll do.” I slide my own hand down over my stomach, I see his gaze follow. For a moment my eyes fall closed when my fingers reach my clit, shuddering immediately at the feel of wetness and warmth. But then I open them again so I can train them on his face.

It’s like this for a full, long minute, us looking at each other but never touching, while our hands fly and work over our own flesh, circling and stroking, while the sounds and gusts of our labored breaths mingle between us. Every parting of his lips or slight arch of his body towards mine I tie deeply with the surges of pleasure I give myself.

At one point our hands between our legs brush lightly against each other, but it feels like a strong jolt of static that starts at our knuckles and spreads instantly to the rest of our bodies. We both gasp loudly, suddenly shattered out of our dream-like states, and our mouths come together in a sloppy kiss, our tongues sliding against each other’s. We resume our stroking motions on ourselves, though now we’ve begun to give in to a rising desire.

When I sense I’m about to break, and my thighs begin to quake from the effort of balancing on that very point, I feel Sherlock’s hands clamp around my hips, so I draw away from his mouth to see his face again - his lips are swollen with my attention, and his eyes are fixed on me yet at the same time lost and unfocused in a fog of want. I feel – know – I look the same. I take my hand from myself to pin his heaving chest down.

We’d both been so close to the edge and yet we’re greedy for more. So without giving it another thought I press my fingers into his skin as I sink my hips down onto him, until he slides in and he lets out a moan of relief.

We move in uncoordinated thrusts, his fingers tightening on me every time I grind against him. I dig my nails into his sweat-sheened chest, and grit my teeth as I drive down on him even harder, faster, so that I feel dizzy from the heat in my thighs and cunt.

His head falls back against my mattress, every muscle in his neck and chest and shoulders tensed as he lifts his hips to mine repeatedly, every small shift of him inside me is magnified ten times over – the pleasure blooms and I can barely keep back the sighs that escape from my mouth. At some points his hands slide up to grasp my breasts but then always fall back to pull my hips against him, as if he were desperate to feel and keep every part of me.

It doesn’t take much more, after we’d both wound ourselves up for so long – Sherlock’s eyes fly shut and he cries out; his fingers dig into my slick skin as he comes – I feel him fall apart around me, inside of me, and yet I can’t reach my peak – I claw at his chest in frustration, grinding down onto him; he gasps with every added thrust.

Then finally it happens, as pleasure pulses through me in tidal waves, so that my limbs lock solid and my mouth falls open as it blooms – “Oh _god,”_ I pant – and blooms, and finally lets me loose to collapse against Sherlock, breathless.

His arms come around over my back immediately, curling his hands over my shoulder, my waist. I kiss a path up his neck and jawline, until our mouths join and rejoin, still heated from our activity. We kiss each other soundly for a long time, until we’re both spent and limp, until our chests are no longer heaving.

I feel his heartbeat against mine, thumping just as hard, though as my eyelids slowly slip closed, heavy with exhaustion, I can’t help but feel calm.

* * *

A little time later, when there’s not a trace of light left outside, I climb out of bed to search for a snack in my fridge. I fish a Tupperware of shrimp sandwiches out from the back and carry it back to my bedroom.

When I reenter, Sherlock is awake again, too, though he’s turned away from me, the glow of his mobile’s screen piercing through the darkness.

“What are you doing?” I ask, sitting back on the bed.

He turns his head slightly to acknowledge me, his profile outlined by the light. “Booking a flight.”

Something inside me sinks. “Ah.”

It strikes me, suddenly, that this is my last night in my Soho flat. Before sunrise, both he and I have to flee the city and leave no trace. I’ve had to disappear from countless temporary homes a hundred times, but somehow, this time, I feel unsure, and weighed down. Perhaps he is the anchor…?

He turns towards me a little more. “What’s that?”

I pop the lid off the Tupperware. “Dinner. What with the saga of drama today, I never got a chance to eat.” I lift a slice of sandwich out from the container, and my eyes flick up to him. “Your case is solved and done with. Will you not eat yet?”

Even before I’ve even ended my sentence, he snatches the slice out from my hand and turns back to his mobile, rather audibly stuffing the entire into his mouth.

I blink in surprise. “Would you like the other half.”

“Only if you don’t want it,” he says through chews.

I decide I do, so I keep the second slice for my own to nibble on as I settle down beside him. “What time did you book?”

“About five A.M.,” he answers. “I think that’s enough time for us to prepare.”

I finish the rest of my sandwich and put the Tupperware on my bedside drawer. I come back to kiss his shoulder. “Do you think you’re ready?”

He turns off the screen of his mobile, and we’re thrown again into night. Still, I can see him put it away and then turn fully to me. He is quiet and unmoving for a long time.

“I don’t know,” he finally answers, and it sounds painful for him to say. “Are you?”

I slip my hand over his side to rest on his back as I think. Then, “No. I never have been.” My eyes move up to meet his in the darkness. “But I’ll go anyway. As should you.”

Sherlock doesn’t argue. He doesn’t seem to want to. He puts his own arms around me again. Our legs rest in a tangle over my sheets.

* * *

The sudden patter of rain against the glass wakes me up again an hour or so later. I grunt and rub my eyes in frustration, pulling myself from his arms to rise out of bed. My window is partly open, letting a splash of rain make it to my floor, so I pull and lock it closed.

When I sleepily come back into bed, though, a hand shoots out to curl around my thigh. Sherlock stretches forward to press a kiss to my knee, then mouths his way up my leg. I gasp in surprise first, but then I thread my fingers into his hair, then yank his head back so that he hisses, and looks up at me.

I bend down to meet him, and our lips clash and mold together, messy and unguided by light. Slowly his hand works up my side, and slowly I push him back to lie against my bed, so I can move down his heated body and take him into my mouth. I’ll never quite be able to forget the feel of pinning him to the rumpled sheets, as his hips shift and buck urgently under my hands.

* * *

“What will you bring with you?” he asks me a long time later, as I lie against him.

“Not much,” I reply. “Maybe a fifth of my wardrobe. A good book. The gun in my drawer – there’s a gun in my drawer, by the way. But the papers, cards, anything tied to Rita Delmare, I think I’ll just burn.”

He huffs. “She wasn’t one of your better aliases, anyway.”

I smile at that. “Which ones did you like then? Janet from Australia? Frederick from Spain?” I peer up at him. “Violet from Karachi?”

He looks back at me with the same amount of focus, though I can’t read his expression.

“I kept that one for quite a while, mind you,” I tell him. “Thirteen months. Considerably long, compared to other names I’ve had to use. It helped keep me safe very well. Thank you for giving it to me.”

He shakes his head. “ _You_ kept yourself safe. Not my alias.”

“I did. But I did it as Violet. So of course, I thought of you all the way.”

He swallows visibly. Again for a moment he says nothing.

“Return to London with me.”

My smile disappears. “What?”

“Let’s do away with the grace period. Don’t hide in parts of America and Asia for a month. We can just discreetly reenter England together, see how Mycroft deals with that.”

I feel a lump in my throat. “Sherlock.”

“Why wait?” he continues, gaining speed. “If you wait now, you may wait forever. You said it yourself earlier today – when has ‘dangerous’ ever stopped you? I know, and you know, that you’re more than capable of protecting yourself during a grand re-entrance like that.”

“Sherlock,” I say again, though my voice, and the breath that cares it, feels weak. “No.”

A brief pause. “What?” he says.

“The grace period away from England, before I return. It isn’t out of ‘protection.’” I swallow. “It’s simply for me.”

“What do you mean?” he asks, though his voice is low, quiet, as if he already knows.

“I’m…” I have to take a deep breath before I restart. “Returning to London is… a big thing for me to do. Bigger than leaving it in the first place. I know it was my idea, but I can’t do it immediately. I want – I need – the time away. From New York. From communication.”

“From me,” he finishes. I try to interrupt, but he goes on, “No, I don’t say that because I’m hurt. Don’t think so simply of me. I understand. You associate London with many unpleasant things. Your former friends, former enemies, your last conversation with me, even. And you want to go back, to get back everything you’d lost. But you still need time.”

I make a small sigh of relief. But I hear the disappointment in his voice. “Thank you for giving me this.”

“When will we see each other again?” he asks, though.

I run my hand through his hair, down his cheek, and rest it over his heart. “I need a month. At the least.”

He doesn’t bother to hide the gloom in his eyes. “At the least.”

“Take the time to reconcile with Mycroft, catch up with John and his family,” I tell him. “Rebuild your life in Baker Street. I’ll come back to mess it all up as soon as I can.”

Thankfully, he cracks a grin. “I look forward to it.”

It fades after a while, and we stare at each other deeply, silently.

He moves forward and so do I, we meet in a kiss that soon dissolves to roaming hands, heated skin, and the room and world around us fall away.

* * *

Both he and I are still colored with a flush of red as we scramble about the room, picking up our clothes.

“I can’t leave just yet, I have a few ends to tie up,” I say as I grab his shirt to hand to him. “I’ll take an hour. But we should call you a cab immediately. We have to time this right.”

“I’ll send the file from my mobile right before I go through your door,” he says as he quickly redresses. “Once Mycroft listens to it, I’ll already be at the airport.”

“And by the time he does anything, you’ll already be in the air,” I finish.

He nods, then steps out to retrieve his bag from the guest bedroom. For a brief moment I’m left alone in my own room, faced with my unmade bed, my window with rain drying on its glass.

I can actually hear Sherlock moving around in his room, collecting his things, through the hole in our shared wall. Oh, that thing. It feels a little rude to abandon this building without telling the landlord about the damage. Well, least of my worries.

Looking at it now, though, I only remember our evening conversations, thoughts on case developments, accidental reveals of our smaller, more frivolous thoughts. Hints of our yearning, slipping through the cracks. Did it take a weak wall and a burst of destruction to let those show?

I hear Sherlock roll his luggage out from the room and into my hallway, moving down towards my main door. Suddenly I realize how little time we have. I sprint out to follow him.

He’s completely dressed now, in his scarf and coat, parked in front of my entrance with his bag, lit only by the harsh glow of his screen. He’s scrolling through his contacts, his files. He’s already opened my door.

I come to stand in front of him. He’s still, unwavering, and doesn’t look up from his mobile.

I swallow. In my pyjamas, and robe, I still somehow feel cold. “Are you ready?” I ask him, like before.

It’s then when his eyes meet mine. I see my own thoughts reflected back at me – tiredness, uncertainty. A little bit of fear. Plenty of astonishment.

“Never,” he says, like I had earlier tonight. I feel myself shaking a bit.

Our eyes return to his hand holding his mobile. His thumb is hovering over the SEND option. Nothing stops him now except himself. My arms are crossed; my hands clutch me bit too tightly.

He taps, and we hear the digital ping, and suddenly I can’t stop from throwing myself against him. He only stumbles back a fraction, before putting his arms around me and dipping his head to level with my own, which rests against his shoulder. We hold each other tightly, though silently.

This embrace is not for my luxury, nor for his. It’s simply necessary, to keep either of us from tipping over an edge of panic.

He is the only person in the world I know who could possibly go through something like this, and only emerge stronger and surer. Well, the only person in the world, besides me.

When he releases me and takes a hold of his baggage handle again, he shows no trace of the vulnerability we’d shown each other mere seconds ago. But he doesn’t have to. I already know.

“Til the next time,” I say, calmly.

“Til the next time,” he repeats. We keep our gaze with each other for one greedy, stolen moment longer. Then he pulls his shoulders back up, turns around, and disappears into the dim hallway, not daring to look back.

I take backwards steps until I’m far away enough from my door to keep myself from bolting out through it. I am alone again after so long. It feels hard to breath.


	15. Fighting Gravity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your patience! I was supposed to upload this as early as Monday but life got in the way, unfortunately. But, again, thank you so much for taking this ride with me. I thought of the initial premise for this story as early as August 2015, and to see it completed now is both bittersweet and awesomely satisfying. So please enjoy this very simple conclusion!

The desert road stretches on before us until it’s swallowed by the sun. Sherlock drives our utility jeep in silence, staring straight ahead.

He hasn’t spoken to me for hours. Not since _“run.”_

I fidget with the skirt of my black abaya; I hadn’t had the time to take it off. It’s rather warm in the dim, cramped interior of our car, especially since it has no air conditioning. Would he scoff if I asked for us to stop at the side of the road, so I can step out and breathe?

I almost want to laugh at myself. At the dawn of this day, I’d been sore and immobile from interrogations, from imprisonment. Now, I want to complain about the heat.

I dare to turn and look at Sherlock, who hasn’t glanced at me since we first climbed into the jeep to flee the camp. His expression now is plain, passive, as if he were driving down any quiet road in London. How do I look, I wonder? Are my eyes still wide with shock and tears? Is there more grime and blood on my face, or his?

I want to reach out. I want to put my hand on his, clutched loosely over the gearshift. I want him to look at me and see my face. It’s not out of affection or even gratitude. I’m being overcome by this sudden panic that none of this is real, and he’s only a mirage in this scorching desert. _Look at me!_ I want to yell at him. _This morning I thought I was going to die, and right this moment I feel exactly the same. What is happening?_

Then there’s a part of me that, for some reason, is furious. _Why did you do that?_ my imagined tirade continues. _I didn’t ask you to. I was ready. I was ready to let go of everything. There was nothing left inside me and the only thing the executioner would’ve done was stop my heart. I had nothing. Nothing but…_

“You’re tearing your robe,” he says.

I almost jump at the sudden sound of his voice over the rumble of the engine. But then I look down, and he’s right – I’d gathered an inch of black fabric between my clenched hands, and I was pulling so hard that it was visibly beginning to rip. It’s only when I let go of it that soreness sears into my palm and fingers.

I’m incapable of forming a coherent sentence in response. “I’m…”

“Get ready,” he speaks again. “We’re near.”

Before I can even ask _near what?_ he floors the gas pedal and the sudden burst of speed shoves me back against my seat, and we zoom off down the road like a tiny black dart across the sand. Soon the horizon gives way to a view of the glimmering sea.

I quickly turn my head back to him. “ _Where_ are we going?”

He doesn’t look back at me. “Not we. Just you.”

I don’t understand the urgent stab of fear that gives me. But I don’t reply. I lean back against my headrest and watch as the water grows and grows.

He drives until a row of small, dingy boats at the shore pull into view. A pair of boatmen wait on the land next to them, their faces half-covered in their white scarves, but their eyes fixed towards us. I don’t know what to think.

He slows the jeep to a stop several meters away from them, and switches the engine off. The new silence very quickly becomes a sharp, deafening ring in my ears. Do I command my body to climb out of the vehicle? Do I speak?

Sherlock finally turns to face me. His expression is still cool, but in the slanted sunlight his eyes are piercing. My lips and mouth and throat are dry, and I can just barely sense that my fingers have curled into my skirt again. Is he going to reach out to me…?

He doesn’t. Instead he stretches his arm towards the back of our car, pulling a thick brown envelope out from under the seat. I can only stare as he opens it, and the stack of forged documents, along with a handful of cards and passports of different countries, peeks out.

“Your name is now Violet Scott,” he tells me. “You’re from America, but you live in Greece. Don’t forget this.”

“Greece?”

Finally he looks up from flipping through the papers to meet my eyes. “Yes. I’ve hired those men there to bring you to an industrial port in the next city. They’ll help smuggle you into one of the cargo ships headed for Crete. You’ll have to pose as a kitchen maid during the course of the voyage, but once you reach Greek land you can drop that. There’s an address here in this package, simply find your way. There’s a vacant townhome waiting for you.”

My heart starts pounding. “What am I supposed to do?”

He finally shows some emotion – he furrows his brows in annoyance. “I just told you.”

“No,” I blurt. “What do I do with myself after this? I didn’t plan anything past the morning.”

It seems to really strike him, then, what I’ve just been through. His expression softens, and his grip on the envelope relaxes the smallest bit. I begin to tremble.

“Your name will be Violet Scott,” he says. “But you must continue to be Irene Adler.”

I can’t speak. Sherlock stares at me for a moment longer, before mechanically turning back around to open his door and exit the car.

My hand shoots out and grabs his wrist. “Will I ever see you again?”

That makes him abruptly face me again, his eyes wide with an emotion I can’t quite place. I don’t let go of him, can’t. I feel if I did, I would dissolve and pieces of me would scatter in the wind with the sand around us.

Sherlock looks at me with a surprisingly open ache this time. There’s a struggle in his expression, in the tension I feel in his arm, as if he were fighting gravity itself. If I could read his thoughts through my fingertips as I grip his wrist, I would suspect that he feels just the same as I do: unsure, and afraid, and wanting nothing more than to pull into the other’s arms in an embrace.

I can’t submit to that. Not here, in the non-privacy of our jeep, in the urgency of my situation.

I must let go.

Once my fingers leave his wrist, he looks down at it, as if searching for a brand I might have left on his skin. But the blush of red where my hand had gripped him rapidly lifts and fades, and no more evidence is left of our moment of weakness.

He doesn’t answer the question I’d asked. I’m almost grateful he doesn’t. We both wordlessly climb out of the car and towards the hired men.

He hands me the envelope once I’ve already climbed into the tiny boat. There is no lingering touch between us as he passes the package into my hands, though I do gaze into those bright eyes a final time. He gazes right back.

He stands and watches me as the men pull our boat out into the water, steering it away from the shore. He continues to watch, no matter how far away I drift, shrinking and shrinking into a still black dot against the desert.

* * *

I wake up from my vivid dream, alone.

It takes several blinks and a few deep breaths for me to remember where I am: a cold, though safe, motel room on the edge of some part of Philadelphia, the low news-disseminating murmur of the bedside radio keeping me company. When I turn to my side on the bed to face the window, I see it’s a very early, purple morning.

“…his Pound Ridge house as a getaway with his mistresses,” I hear the announcer speak through the static. “James Moore and his campaign team have been unavailable for comment.”

So the news about Georgina Langdon, the Stein Impostor, is out, and so is the fact that I’m alive to anyone who might recognize my name. That makes it the smallest bit less safe for me to linger here in America, but I couldn’t care to be cautious when I fled New York.

I had taken very little from the apartment – what clothes could fit in my bag, pawnable jewelry, a copy of Kate Chopin’s _The Awakening,_ the book on the edge of my shelf, to keep myself entertained. I left my mobile, in case it could be traced. Any documents, any cards bearing the name Rita Delmare, I destroyed.

Before the sun rose I’d opened Café Margate for the last time, and left a small pile of things for Peter on the counter next to the cash register: my own set of keys, and a note, _The café is yours. Change the name._

That had been two days ago. I’ve been running ever since.

Admittedly, it hasn’t been as thrilling as my other experiences on the run have been. I performed the usual routine – changed my hair, cut it shorter to just below my chin and forcibly combed it straight, limiting my meals to packets of fast food, and taking all the late-night buses and train rides when there are far fewer riders with me at the station. Despite the time spent traveling, I found myself too tense to even glance at the book I’d brought along. It’s more fun, I suppose, when international flight is involved.

“…containing the voice of world-famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, who has not since reappeared,” I hear the radio again, and I groan and tug the blanket over my head. No thank you. Not a name I want to remember for the time being. All it does it pull me overpoweringly back towards London, towards infamy, towards danger…

God, of all the memories I had to dream to remind me of _him._ Why did it have to be that one? Couldn’t it have been the time I’d swung a whip across his face? Our battle of wits in his living room in 221B, over a forged copy of my camera phone? That one morning in my guest bedroom in New York, me straddling his lap, his face buried against my neck as he thrust into my grip…

“…the female voice identifies herself as Irene Adler, and – “

Oh, god. I quickly reach over to the bedside drawer and switch the damned thing off, but the buzzing silence that follows only makes me cringe harder. It’s a disposable piece of information for any casual listener at five in the morning, but it could very well be the cause of my death – the real one, this time. Had I made the right decision, revealing my survival to Mycroft Holmes, to the world?

 _And what will Pat Alvarez think,_ a stray thought taunts me, _when she hears the voice she knew and loved as Rita, call itself Irene?_

I kick the sheets off my body and leap out of the bed. As soon as my bare feet hit the filthy carpet, the air around me becomes colder, and the motel room, with its striped walls and outdated decor, only feels more claustrophobic. I need to be distracted. I need anything.

I trudge over to my bulky duffel bag in the corner of my room, and start fumbling through it for the book I’d brought along with me. I’m desperate for whatever will still my thoughts. I pull Kate Chopin’s _The Awakening_ out from under my pile of clothes and sit right there on the carpeted floor and open it.

I don’t expect the tiny piece of folded paper that falls out from between the first pages.

It lands on my lap, quiet and light, but its stark white color blinds me in the dim early morning. I’m stunned for a few seconds, staring at the scrap of paper over my gown. I had bought this book, brand new, from a Borders. It couldn’t have been a secondhand remnant from a previous owner who donated this to a flea market. The paper, even, looks crisp and new.

I pick it up and unfold it, to reveal the hurried, yet heavy, scrawl inside.

_Irene,_

_I’m writing this as you sleep in your bed. It’s about four hours before both of us leave this apartment forever for our separate destinations. It’s quite a bit longer, I estimate, before we meet each other again._

_I thought, after what we’d said to each other this afternoon and evening, that we could confess anything we’d like to each other in utter comfort and confidence. But it turns out that I don’t feel quite bold enough for what I will say to you now._

_I am not returning directly to London._

_Our original plan was to have me wait in England while Mycroft focused all his resources on locating you once he would learn that you are alive. I would send a decoy message that pointed him the wrong way, and buy you time to reenter London unseen._

_Forgive me for abandoning that now. I will send Mycroft our recording, as promised, but I will not go back home immediately to meet him. It’s not for any of the reasons you might first think. I know you’re more than capable of protecting yourself, though I would be lying if I said your safety wasn’t one of the things on my mind when I made my decision. And I am no longer afraid of facing John, or Mary, or even Mycroft back home. You made me realize I have no cause to be. So that’s not my reason either._

_Instead, I was considering the fact that for so long, despite all our talk, we’ve both allowed our lives to be shaped by the demands of others – enemies, friends, family. And I decided that, with an opening act as shattering as reintroducing Irene Adler into the world, we could get away with so much more._

_We don’t have to remain ships in glass bottles. Both of us have always had the ability to escape._

_I hear there’s been a string of incredibly similar murders across parts of South America. I doubt it’ll be boring there. England can wait another two months or so._

_SH_

I stare at the page for an eternity. For a heartbeat I blink back to that casual question of his two nights ago in my bed – _What will you bring with you?_ – and my answer – _A good book._ But how had he known to slip his message into _this_ particular book? I didn’t even choose until right before I was out my flat…

In my head, suddenly, I have an image of my bookshelf, next to my door – particularly, the spot where _The Awakening_ by Kate Chopin had been:

at the end of the row of all my books, right next to the empty space where my bottled model of HMS Victory used to sit.

It’s this rush of realization that knocks me back into the present, back to this letter. For a moment, I’m frozen. And then, beginning at the tips of my fingers, and spreading out to my shoulders, my back – I begin to tremble.

Why would he leave me stranded like this? Now, when we had no mode of communication, no time to wait around for each other. The British Government was after both of us, for God’s sake. How could he be so _stupid?_

In my frustration, and in a split-second effort to stop my tears from spilling forward, I clench my fingers into fists, the note still between them. The crunching sound of the paper breaks the fog of silence around me. I blink one, two, a dozen times, until my eyes are dry.

I look down at my hands. The white letter, now ruined, lies in my hands, creased and pulled. It’s an unnerving reflection of something I’d seen years ago, in the Karachi desert – _my hands, gripping a length of my black abaya until it was nearly ripped._ A negative image.

My heart lurches. No. I am not that afraid and lost again. I’m not scanning the shoreline, searching in vain for a distant vision of Sherlock Holmes.

Yet, despite this utterly distracting thought, I notice something else in the paper, peeking from the corner.

I squint in the early morning dimness. It’s an extra bit of writing on the other side of the paper, made visible from when I had crumpled it in anger.

Two rows of black ink, two strings of numbers:

_-22.951151  
-43.358052_

…Contact numbers? A bank account?

…Geographical coordinates, in decimal degrees. The navigation system used by planes, and… boats.

Oh, for Christ’s sake. Of course he’d never spoon-feed information like this to me. The prick.

Some half of me wants to scream, and yet the other wants to laugh. I settle for pulling the letter back into a flat rectangle, and then pressing it against my chest, where it might feel how hard my heart’s begun to thud.

I had thought I lost Sherlock into a crowd of strangers forever. Perhaps he wanted me to go through this storm of emotions to realize how badly I would miss him? …Or perhaps, like me, he’s still a little bit frightened by his own feelings, and wouldn’t know how to demonstrate them immediately?

 _Immediately._ My hands loosen over the letter. Oh god. He’d written this in my New York flat and left it inside my book two days ago. Has he been waiting for me at his new location since? Is he still even there?

I scramble to my feet and sprint around my room, grabbing my few things.

Even in my rush, with every movement I make, ever step my feet and legs reach, I feel more and more like myself. There’s no time to panic, or feel afraid of the battle ahead. I must continue to be Irene Adler. I must be the warship and the storming sea that comes with it.

And I must find the one person who looks past the white sleet and churning waves, and sees me.

If I pack and leave this motel fast enough, I could run out to a main road and catch a cab by 6AM. My head aches over how quickly the seconds tick by me. Had I read that letter sooner, would I be lying reunited with him now, our chests heaving, our limbs tangled in the sheets?

I find that I can’t help but smile a little. _Well,_ I think as I pack my clothes into my duffel bag, _wouldn’t it be so_ boring _if things always went according to plan._

* * *

 

In the warm light of a 6:05AM sun, a cab stops in front of me in Philadelphia.

“Where to?” the driver asks as I climb in.

I look onwards at the asphalt road, which stretches on before us until it’s swallowed by the sun. “Airport. International departures.”

“Which flight you need to catch?”

“9AM, Rio de Janeiro.”

The skies are bright and clear. A perfect day for a journey across the sea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for reading! And an even bigger thank you for all of your comments, kudos, and bookmarks. <3 If it interests anyone, I currently have two nice lengthy oneshots in the works, both Adlock ;) But for now I'm going to kick back and reward myself by reading/rereading all of your own lovely stories. See you around!


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